Witoubou Newmai
When many things are fast gathering into abominable storms in the region (the so-called North East), one consolation that nudges us to attention is about the growth of the media in the region, both in terms of professional quality and quantity.
If there were ‘complaints’ in the earlier days of ‘resource constraint’, we ought to look back to those pretty cool days of ‘Letter Press’ machines, landline telephones and type-writing machines, and supplemented to the fervor were those ‘black & white’ mechanical or manual-roll-film-loading cameras, to 'excuse' the hardworking people of the bygone media houses.
It has been for quite a time ago now that pictures of dead bodies found in roadsides and travelling stations or mutilated carcasses have gone for good from the face of newspapers. News ‘filters’ of the media houses have improved tremendously today. Although the advancement of technology can also be accounted to this improvement to a certain degree, the firmer professional mooring and sense of journalists reflect today’s finer news ‘filtering.’
Unlike those corporate owned media houses in the metropolitan cities where ‘individuals’ or ‘groups’ have very little chance of resorting to diktats, our own journalists here in the region, inspite of walking in a thin line throughout, give their best to the profession amid a plethora of ‘pressures’ from various quarters. Meagre remunerations do not deter the spirit of our journalists either.
Specifically referring to the State of Nagaland, there has been preponderance of many talented people armed with high educational qualifications venturing into this challenging profession, even though they already fully knew the ‘raging tempest’, to serve the society. These journalists in the State have been enduring all this long without expecting any accolade from anyone---their joys and celebrations are brought about by positive impacts in the society from their news reports.
Having come this far of showering ‘sweeties’ on our journalists, this writer does not mean to connote that elevation of our professionalism to the next level is not due in the region. It is long due, perhaps. However, the problem still lies beyond the reach of the present ‘form’ of our ‘media’. Inversely speaking, the ‘tempestuous’ situation of the region still controls and determines lives in many ways. For this reason the media houses have been hobbling.
This writer is referring to the investigative journalism.
But as it appears now, raging enthusiasm of today’s journalists in the region has been the reason, particularly in the State of Nagaland, we are sensing “distant storms” for good in the horizon.
With this, the present ‘form’ of our 'media' is bound to transform to meet today’s demand.
