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Twenty-Fifth Convention Of Federation Of Nepalese Journalists
Twenty-Fifth Convention Of Federation Of Nepalese Journalists
KTM Metro Reporter
August 21, 2017
Kathmandu: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba inaugurated the 25th convention of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) at the Academy Hall in Kathmandu yesterday. Nepalese journalists have traveled from no information to the rights to the information. Many journalists had risked their lives during the Shah-Rana rule and some of them had lost their precious lives for reporting the facts.
Currently, journalists have been seeking their job security, rights to benefits as other employees enjoy, and certainly the security. They want their employment secured as any other employees working in any sector. They want to make this profession as honorable as any profession.
The State often acts as the enemy of the journalists while journalists as always the opposition. Journalists’ duty often has been to expose the weakness and wrong doings of the administration, and work for the people’s rights to information giving correct facts and figures.
Surely, some of the journalists have been for getting the backdoor payments from the government or from the political parties sometimes working as their agents and reporting not the correct facts and figures but made-up ones.
Today, Nepal has more than 500 FM radios, about 15 private TVs, and numerous newspapers reporting facts and figures to the common folks. Time had been even after the end of the no-party system in 1990, the then interim government presided over by Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and his press advisor Man Mohan Bhattarai were reluctant to open up the door to private FM radios, and private TVs and so on. However, under the heavy pressure of the international community, one government after another gave in and opened up private media.
Reporting of the private media has been much to be desired causing credibility and reliability questions. Often, the private reporters either rush to report without having the verifiable facts and figures or simply rely on others’ reporting causing most of the time wrong reporting.
Currently, the most reliable sources of information have been the State-run newspapers, radio and TV. Anybody could be sure of the facts once they are reported in the State media.
During the no-party system in other words the time of the monarchical rule, the State media had been heavily biased and not entirely reliable and even without much required information. So, common folks mostly depended on the private newspapers at that time, as no private radios and TVs were available. Now, the situation has just reversed.
