Starting the year with a 'bang' : First working day of 2012
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 04 2012 -

Office of the daily where the grenade was planted and inset the grenade - Pix :: TSE

Scribble some nonsense on a piece of paper as a warning and wrap it up with an impressive looking explosive device and then deliver or place the parcel at the office of a newspaper house.

Notch it down a little and it reads as-pick up the phone, dial the number of a newspaper office or better still dial the mobile of a scribe and then cooly talk about what awaits the media persons if the statement issued earlier is not published.

Or give the larynx some exercise by turning up the volume knob and let flow some high sounding philosophy that does anything but make sense.

Or better still tell a newspaper house to shut shop because it did not care to carry the statement issued earlier, never mind the fact that the contents of the statement may amount to nothing but some extortion notice.

The latter examples cited here are the precursors of the case cited in the opening sentence of this editorial and the hand grenade that greeted the media persons of Imphal on the first working day of 2012 is a reflection of the situation under which the men engaged in the profession of disseminating news and information to the people and moulding public opinion to a certain extent have to work.

Welcome to the land of the sons of the soil. The Chinese hand grenade that was placed at the office of a vernacular daily was the handiwork of a 'defunct' outfit christened KCP (MC-Lanchen Chanu) but the symptom in the very act of placing the explosive device runs through all the outfits floated by these sons of the soil.

As in the past, whenever the media houses had come under severe strain and pressure, the reason for placing the bomb was the same-failure to publish a statement issued earlier.

From where did this idea come that all statements issued by organisations with a patriotic sounding name should be published ?

This is not a question raised just for the sake of asking something but should be taken in the backdrop of so many organisations coming under the impression that whatever they issue should find a place on the pages of the newspapers.

Nothing can be more ludicrous or absurd than this. If anyone is under the impression that journalists are here to copy and paste whatever is given to them, then it is time for a reality check.

This was the second time that a bomb has been delivered to the office of a newspaper, at least in the last 10 years, the first time being in the office of The Sangai Express on July 31, 2007.

The world and even Imphal have changed in the years since then, but the mindset of these people are stuck in a time warp and nothing explains this better than the fact that the reasons for the bomb at the office of TSE and the latest on January 2 is the same more or less.

A coercive ploy devised to force the publication of a statement or stop a press release from getting published.

On April 16, 2006, five Editors of different newspaper establishments and the then News Editor of ISTV were kept hostage overnight by the City Meitei group of the KCP over their refusal to publish a statement issued by the outfit earlier.

The six senior scribes were ultimately freed, but only after the statement of the outfit was published, giving a new definition to terror tactics.

In between there have been many instances when media houses of Manipur have had to close shop in protest against the growing diktats of different power players, including social organisations.

The message is clear and simple. Whatever statement is issued, the Imphal based newspapers should carry them, never mind the point whether they are news worthy or are nothing much more than some 'notices'.

Where did the grand idea of making the media do their work come about ?

An interesting question, no doubt but at the same time which would not amuse anyone engaged in this profession.

It certainly was not at all amusing to see the warning that the bomb placed on January 2 was not meant to explode with the rider that the next time round the bomb would explode.

The first working day of the new year did not exactly start with a bang, as understood in the positive sense, for the media persons.