Corporate media houses have turned into ‘stenographers’ for the Government and there was a dangerous trend of intermingling of political leaders, corporate media house owners and industrialists, observed noted journalist and Ramon Magsayay Award winner P. Sainath on Tuesday.
Participating in the second anniversary of ‘ Nava Telangana ’ Telugu daily, he charged most media houses of not reflecting the real problems of the people and reporting the truth.
He was also critical of the contract system of employment for journalists and lamented that despite Supreme Court directive the wage implementation has been tardy.
Earlier, Telugu University Vice-Chancellor S.V. Satyanarayana called upon newspapers not to give up their independent, impartial and neutral stance.
They should always be in the forefront in the struggle against injustice and discrimination.
He also felicitated senior journalists - C. Raghavachari (former editor of ‘ Visalandhra ’), S. Vinay Kumar (former editor ‘ Prajasakthi ’) and M. Melly Maitreyi (Sr.Asst. Editor ‘ The Hindu ’) on the occasion.
Mr. Sainath also handed over the Cartoonist Sekhar memorial award to ‘ Namaste Telangana ’cartoonist Mruthyunjay.
It carried a memento, citation and a cash prize of ₹ 25,000; V. Hanumantha Rao best journalist award was given to B. Basvapunnaiah and P. Venkataswami, both carried a memento, citation and a cash prize of ₹ 5000 each. ‘ Nava Telangana ’ editor S. Veeraiah also spoke.
