MxMIndia

Tag: press freedom

  • Inext won the top award in the Public Service category for this year's World Young Reader Prize and has also been named World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year for 2012

    Inext seals the big show at WAN-IFRA awards

    By A Correspondent

     

    Taking yet another big leap, Inext has bagged the top honours in WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers) awards for 2012.  With an unrelenting focus on espousing youth’s philosophy, Inext, won both the top award in the Public Service category for this year’s World Young Reader Prize and has also been named World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year for 2012. The prizes will be awarded on July 10 inBangkokat the 1st Asia-Pacific Young Reader Summit.

     

    WAN-IFRA, a global organisation of the world’s press, representing more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries, gives away awards for excellence in the defence and promotion of press freedom, quality journalism, editorial integrity and the development of prosperous businesses and technology.

     

    Welcoming the announcement, Shailesh Gupta, Director, Jagran Prakashan Limited, congratulated the team and lauded the efforts that went into the winning campaigns and the stories. “It is due to the substantial focus and tangential wisdom of the team Inext that such smart campaigns which incorporated both the news value and more importantly, the societal concerns, were run. It has been yet another token of excellence for the Jagran group and I believe the good work would be kept up with in the future too.”

     

    This year, Inext’s success at WAN-IFRA hinged on three major stories: The Power of youth; wherein survey was done to tap the thinking and preferences of youth in run-up to the assembly elections in UP and Uttarakhand. Tol Mol Ke Poll was an election page carried daily till elections which focused on an issue related to elections almost daily and succeeded in connecting with youth through a column ‘Sadda Haq’.

     

    Second campaign was Bhari Basta; an educative and investigative campaign that activated the government machinery – school authorities, parents and teachers – to reduce the weight of schools bags of kids. It was run across 12 cities in 4 states and proved to be a catalyst in children empowerment. The Jury also found Inext’s iktara campaign, a unique folk singing competition, integrated online to bring out the talent in folk singing, a new approach to entertainment. It created a strong buzz across the country in favour of the old, relegated art.

     

    The jury observed that these campaigns provided a refreshing perspective on the 3Cs-corruption, compassion and creativity. “Inext did an excellent job in galvanizing youth to get out and vote. We found it especially interesting that youth considered corruption the number one topic of concern. The other two projects entered also showed creativity and relevance. The investigative report and campaign about heavy back-packs truly made a difference, and the folk singing contest was a fresh approach to youth entertainment,” mentioned the official communication.

     

    Last year, the World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year award was won by Indonesian newspaper JAWA POS, while for 2010 the winner was French newspaper Le Monde. This year, Inext has joined the distinguished league of such illustrious antecedents for the top honour.

     

    Expressing pleasure at the development, Inext’s Project Head and COO, Alok Sanwal revealed that it is Inext’s youthful vision that provided the cutting edge to the tabloid. “We have always tried to capture the social concerns with a young eye. All our major campaigns are directed at influencing young minds and developing in them a taste of societal awareness and understanding. We would continue to undertake such path breaking campaigns that underline our responsibility to change the world around us.”

     

  • A private member's bill, subsequently disowned by the ruling Congress, sought to empower the government to ban coverage of any event that may pose a threat to national security

    UPA tenure sees surge in attempts on media curbs

    By A Correspondent

     

    Last month, Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan, reportedly close to Rahul Gandhi, the party’s general secretary, proposed a legislation that sought to regulate the media. The private member’s bill, subsequently disowned by the ruling Congress after uproar, sought to empower the government to ban coverage of an event that may pose a threat to national security. The bill also prescribes detailed ‘standards’ that the media should follow.

     

    Late last year, communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal famously sought to regulate the social media. The itch to regulate the media is not new but ever since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) returned to power in 2009, attempts to do so have become alarmingly frequent.

     

    “The problem started when media organisations across the country began reporting on political issues aggressively,” said IBN7 managing editor Ashutosh. This was in late 2009 and 2010, when a series of scams were exposed by different sections of the media, including the alleged 2G spectrum scam in which former minister A Raja and a clutch of bureaucrats and industrialists are on trial.

     

    When questioned, political parties and media groups across the board agree that the government should stay away from media regulation, but that has not stopped the government from trying at various levels.

     

    During the time Anna Hazare’s campaign was gathering steam last year, there were reports of impending curbs on the social media, which was being used to garner support by the Anna camp. “At some stage we were told that the mainstream media was instructed not to report on the Anna Hazare campaign,” said former top-cop Kiran Bedi, who is also a member of India Against Corruption. “People voice their opinions through the media and the moment government gags that, you are abusing people’s vote,” she added. However, no such curbs were eventually imposed.

     

    For a country that prides itself on its status as the world’s largest democracy, the years under the UPA government, which came to power in 2004, have seen an alarming slippage in press freedom. This is ironical, political observers say, as the Congress-led UPA had benefited from the media’s aggressive exposure of scams during the NDA era. The media’s extensive, and overwhelmingly negative coverage of the Gujarat riots had also helped turn public opinion.

     

    The 2011-2012 Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders shows that India has dropped on the index from the 80th position held in 2002 to the 131st position in 2011-12 among 179 countries.

     

    “There is a complete absence of confidence and lot of insecurity among the elected representatives today, which is adding to the problem,” said Abraham Koshy, professor of marketing at IIM, Ahmedabad.

     

    In recent years, a number of politicians have invested in media businesses across the country, which some say, is another way to restrict the media.

     

    “The politician-corporate nexus too has grown further over the years and that is also impacting freedom of the media as some of these corporate own parts of the media. The government should not try to impose restrictions on the media,” said Nilotpal Basu, central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

     

    There is a school of thought that politicians and political parties should not be allowed to own media companies under the law as that could lead to media being used as a tool for propaganda.

     

    “TV channels and newspapers are watchdogs of the government but if they are owned by the politicians themselves, there is a conflict of interest and that is what should be regulated,” said an editor of a news channel, who did not wish to be named. “We must sit down and discuss these issues,” said Vinod Mehta, former editor-in-chief of Outlook India. While most of those quoted in this story are also concerned about the quality of reporting in the country, which needs to be improved, most prefer self-regulation.

     

    Mr Ashutosh said: “Self-regulation within the media is working. Media needs to improve the same way the functioning of the Parliament, the judiciary and the executive need to improve in the country.”

     

    Ms Bedi said the media needs to be more independent and non-partisan but it is a fact that “media plays the roles of a visual and verbal Lokpal. Without media exposing the scams, India would have been a Banana Republic.”

     

    Source: The Economic Times
    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved