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| Need for revamping PR Department | | |
Now that the Srinagar based newspapers have resumed publication after the Government removed restrictions and assured them that adequate number of curfew passes will be issued whenever it was imposed in the valley it should not be treated as an incident that happened and ended in truce.The event leading to the authorities not to entertain the curfew passes that had been issed to the pressmen,working for the local,national and the international newspapers,news agencies and el;ectronic news channels need to be looked into by the top echelons of the Government so that such incidents were not allowed to be repeated.The hasty plan conceived for gagging the press freedom was unfortunate.Equally unfortunate was the way the Government sealed the publication offices and the printing presses of three newspapers published from Jammu.It was not the Government that revoked the ban order on its own but the ban was lifted because of the intervention of the
court.Possibly the National Conference led coalition Government has forgotten that newsmen and the editors and owners of the local newspapers are human beings.One cannot expect them to be infallible.Yes,action is called for when newsmen or newspapers keep on repeating blunders,if they keep on twisting facts,if they keep on indulging in yellow journalism.But if an error or two creep in reporting or in editing the Government should discuss the matter with the erring journalists or editors.And this is the job of the top brass in the state's Information Department.Unfortunately since Omar Abdullah has taken over as Chief Minister of the troubled state he has not been in a position to appoint the right person for the right job.Whosoever headed the Department during the last one year were either poets,short story writers or novelists.They had neither the nose for dissecting news from fiction.They have had no nose for PR work.They had no training in
cultivating newsmen and editors.They have been away from the realities and have not been told about the successes their predecessors had achieved even during moments of crisis and turmoil.
Invariably those who head the Information Department feel that they have the authority and the handle to tame newsmen and newspaper editors to submission as advertisements released by the Department are one of the major sources of revenue for the newspapers.They seem to have forgotten that a number of newspapers in the state have survived and thrived in the absence of any advertisement support from the Government.Yes,the state authorities were upset when most of the newspapers published in Srinagar used "bloodbath"while reporting on the death of three youths in police firing.But instead of imposing restrictions,which attracted severe criticism at the State and the national level,the top breass of the Information Department should have intervened and hammered out a solution during a meeting with the editors of the Srinagar based newspapers.Similarly if the Government in general and the Chief Minister in particular had some grouse against three
newspaper owners,published in Jammu,the Information Department Director should have taken up the matter with the newspaper owners and editors.It is certain if it had been done the Government would have learnt that the order on sealing three newspapers was discriminatory.On both the occasions the Information Department authorities have failed.It is not their fault because the Department has been heading by people who are not cast for the job.Why it has heppened because the responsibility of posting an officer to head the Department and of regulaing its working has been entrusted to a political minion instead of a cabinet rank Minister.Much damage has been done to the credibility and to the importance of the Information Department,which once was considered to be the key department in the state.Whatever wrong has crept in the functioning of the Department can be rectified if the Government constitutes a team of experts,comprising those retired officers
who had headed the Department from time to time.The committee could be asked to submit recommendations on the revamping of the Department and select a panel of names out of which one could be posted as Director Information
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