“Hope.” When Chief Editor of The Indian Express Raj Kamal Jha spoke about “journalism's mortality” at the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards ceremony.
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📹: Indian Express Indian Express Entertainment
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00:00There is an ease of doing business and there is a very specific unease of doing journalism.
00:08We have a journalist in this city who has to leave this city after two decades of living
00:14here because she wrote malicious stories.
00:18We had a judge from the court, high court, who told a reporter in open court after a
00:26mildly unflattering story, but a very fair story, I don't want to see you report on this
00:34court.
00:35That same judge resigns, joins a political party and is all sugar and honey on television
00:43when everybody sings his praise.
00:49Thank you, 1313.
00:53That is the number of Ramnath Goenka Award applications that we got this year, 1313.
01:05That's a record, that's a record in the last 18 years since we launched the Ramnath Goenka
01:13Awards.
01:15A thousand plus journalists and more than two dozen authors sending in their best work,
01:24stories and books, that very fact brings us hope.
01:31Hope when every day we hear, we hear intimations of journalism's mortality.
01:41Not many seem to care for us these days.
01:44I'm going to get into that later.
01:46Not many seem to care for us these days except our parents and some of our best friends and
01:54even those best friends who vote the way we do.
01:58Just take the last one month.
02:01I'm just taking five specific examples from last month.
02:06We had a judge from the court, high court, who told a reporter in open court after a
02:14mildly unflattering story but a very fair story, I don't want to see you report on this
02:22court.
02:23That same judge resigns, joins a political party and is all sugar and honey on television
02:32when everybody sings his praise.
02:39There's a journalist as well who joins another political party and gets a ticket.
02:49We have a journalist in the city who has to leave the city after two decades of living
02:55here because she wrote malicious stories.
02:59We have a leader who, when a journalist told him, when there was a reporter who asked him
03:08a question, he said,
03:12aapke maalik ka kya naam hai?
03:19And when a mob of his supporters roughed up the reporter, he said, usko mat maro yaar,
03:25usko mat maro.
03:27Then we have a few maaliks who have gone down on bended knee, so comfortable in that posture
03:37that it hurts if they stand up.
03:49There is an ease of doing business and there is a very specific unease of doing journalism.
04:05And that is why I really thank you, Honorable Minister, Sri Nitin Gadkari, for being here
04:11this evening, for saying that good journalism is an imperative of good governance.
04:20It may not have the tangible appeal of Bijli, Sadaq or Paani or Jalnal, Swachhata or Ayushman.
04:31It may be very hard to identify who is journalism's labharti.
04:37But the stories we celebrate this evening show the labh of journalism.
04:42Sir, your being here this evening also reinforces the fact that Mr. Goenka talked about, the
04:50need for politicians to have broad shoulders when it comes to journalism and journalists.