Business Standard-Seema Nazareth Award 2017: 'Media needs to introspect'

Don't mix news with views, says Prakash Javadekar. Don't lose pulse of people and become irrelevant

Prakash Javadekar, Union human resource development minister, on Monday exhorted journalists to not mix news with views. 

“Journalism is a job of passion and excitement. It has to be balanced and fair. News and views have to be separate. Edit page is edit page and news page is news page. Recently, I have seen a trend where each news sentence has a slant,” Javadekar said, while speaking at a function organised to confer the Business Standard-Seema Nazareth Award for Excellence in Print Journalism 2016.

Javadekar, the Bharatiya Janata Party in-charge of the Assembly elections in Manipur, said election coverage was either “paid news” or “slant news”. “Media has to do introspection. Media can’t afford to miss the pulse of the people. If media loses the pulse of the people, it becomes irrelevant. Then people will have their own sources (for news),” Javadekar said, in the context that media was not accepting that the demonetisation drive was a success even when the Opposition leaders have stopped criticising it.

Javadekar said his call to journalists would be to ensure their ears were on the ground. “Whether they are reading the pulse and minds of the people, media has to reflect the views of various segments of the society.”

Earlier in the evening, he presented the Business Standard-Seema Nazareth Award to Principal Correspondent Alnoor M Peermohamed, who joined Business Standard in 2015. Peermohamed is based in Bengaluru and won this award for his stories on start-ups and the e-commerce sector. 

The award, given every year to a journalist under 30 years, carries a prize of Rs 50,000, a silver pen and a citation. 

Peermohamed is the 18th recipient of the award, instituted by Business Standard and the Nazareth family in memory of Seema Nazareth, a young Business Standard journalist who died in March 1999.