Indian Journalists Union: Not government advertisement curbs but revival package for papers

New Delhi/Hyderabad: Several journalists’ bodies in the country have reacted with dismay to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s suggestion to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ban government advertisement spending in mass media, as part of austerity measures, and that these funds be diverted for fighting COVID-19 instead.

The prospect of such a easure further affecting the revenues of the media, particularly the print media, has sparked alarm in the media fraternity. In a statement issued by Indian Journalists Union (IJU) on Thursday, several media professionals’ associations termed the government advertisement suggestion as “completely myopic and lacking in reason”.

Speaking to IANS, IJU President K. Sreenivas Reddy contended that apart from destroying small newspapers, such a move will affect the information flow in times of crisis. “Don’t they want credible news to be circulated among the people? Should the people rely on social media? Such a move will impact the flow of news to the people,” he said.

Signatories to the statement, which include the Press Association (PA), Indian Journalists Union (IJU), National Union of Journalists (NUJ-I) and Working News Cameramen’s Association (WNCA), opine that such a move will undermine the role of the media at this crucial juncture when the Covid-19 crisis is already dealing a body blow to the print media in the country.

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