A question of sticking to one's principles
Coping with threats and pressure
- Sangai Express Editorial :: September 06, 2013 -
Journalists' Sit-In-Protest against intimidation to media fraternity by a militant group on 03 Sep 2013 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam
For the records, we were never away.
On the other hand, yes we may be said to have been away from September 1 to September 4.
A brief recap of the past few days may be in line here.
On August 31, all the newspaper houses were informed by the distributors or hawkers that they would not be coming to collect the day's paper and distribute them due to the threats issued against them by a bunch of gun wielding group.
All the newspaper houses based in Imphal went ahead and published the day's paper but the circulation was severely hit.
The Sangai Express could reach out to only 1/4th of its readers on September 1 as majority of the distributors stayed away.
On September 1, the distributors' association issued a formal statement that none of their members would collect the day's paper from September 2, until and unless the threats imposed on them are removed or a solution is reached between the journalists and the gun toting group.
The media houses still went ahead with the business of coming out with the day's paper, but not a single copy reached our readers.
This was when the journalists under the aegis of the Editors' Committee, Manipur and the All Manipur Working Journalists' Union decided to shut shop for two days to lodge their protest against the strong arm tactics adopted by the armed group.
From threatening the hawkers with physical harm, now it has come to threatening all the Editors including their family members.
We are not heroes, but we will not shy away from dispensing with our duties, which is reaching out to our readers every day and disseminating information.
We cannot be the football of anyone's whims and fancy, who can be kicked and tossed around.
The two days suspension of publication was to lodge a complaint, air our grievances.
For the inconveniences caused to our readers, we apologise without any riders.
The threat still persists but we will continue with our work and of course without compromising with our stand.
Some explanations may enlighten our readers to the reality here.
The present stand off is over a statement which the armed group had issued and which the media houses in Imphal have refused to entertain.
Their stand is, publish our statement or face the music.
Our stand is, the newspapers here cannot be the notice board for anyone.
Lest it be taken otherwise, it is not a question of one upmanship.
Editors and journalists are not politicians to play to the gallery.
We are all soft targets and we have nothing to gain by confronting an armed group.
But there is something called professional ethics.
Something called social responsibility and it is this which we will try to defend till the end.
The agenda of some armed groups, with dubious antecedents is simple enough.
Get a statement of theirs published in the newspapers and in the process earn a degree of legitimacy as a group.
Once this is established then they can go ahead with their business of extorting, abducting for ransom or placing bombs and summoning Government officials and traders, all for a price.
This is not the first time that the media in Manipur has come under threats and unnecessary pressure from different groups and it will not be the last one either.
Journalists have been killed, bombs have been planted at the offices of newspaper houses and Editors have been named or included in the hit list of some armed groups at one point of time or the other.
We have walked the talk and there is no reason why we will back off now.
This is not a challenge to any group, but a question of sticking to our principles and beliefs.
And by all means, the media fraternity do need the support and encouragement from the saner voices of society.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.