Gauri Day: Journalists call for diversifying the newsroom

Bengaluru: Inculcating the ethics of Gauri Lankesh, diversifying the editors’ base and breaking the barriers of conventional reportage were some of the changes suggested by media personalities to bring a paradigm shift in journalism. 

Journalists from across the country participated in ‘Gauri Day: Reconstructing the fourth estate’ organised on Sunday by the Gauri Memorial Trust to remember the late journalist on her birth anniversary. 

Journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Hartosh Bal, Navin Kumar, Meena Kotwal, Sumit Chauhan, Geeta Seshu and social activist Bhanwar Meghwanshi spoke about the state of media and the way forward for journalists. 

Bal opined that the country was living in a ‘constructed reality’ by media houses that broadcast the same message passed on by a single political party. “For the reality to prevail, who owns the media has to be dissected. Largely, the editors’ positions are held by the upper-class people,” he said and asked for bringing diversity. 

Geeta said most media outlet owners in India were in Parliament. This is a major problem because it influences the regulation of the media, she added. 

Geeta emphasised that the country had eminent journalists with excellent journalistic skills but those journalists and their narratives were “neglected and invisibilised” by the government. She recalled a conversation with Gauri before she was assassinated and said the slain journalist knew she was on the hit list but said it with a smile. She was never worried about that. “I can still recall that smile.” 

She pointed out that Gauri’s vision was beyond the constraints of conventional media and had extended her boundaries.  Meghwanshi said that the state of Hindi media was “disturbing” and feared it was the same for other languages. 

Kotwal called for more women representation in the media and said media houses must adopt the culture of spreading the voice of common people.