Shri S. Jaipal Reddy, Union Minister for Urban Development stressed the need for objective and value based journalism practice in the country. He also urged the media industry to develop a self-check mechanism so as to curb the contemporary trends in sensationalising and trivialising of facts seen in news reporting.
He warned that such practices might backfire resulting in loss of credibility and interest of the reading and viewing public may change. . This was stated by the Minister while inaugurating the first academic session of two Masters Degree Programmes of the School of Journalism and New Media Studies (SOJNMS) of Indira Gandhi National Open University IGNOU, here today.
He further mentioned that the value of Media will go up if the moral values are protected and the moral value in journalism is factual reporting. “One must be true to facts as closely as possible while reporting”, said the Minister. Shri Reddy emphasised that mere technical competence is not sufficient, Media Persons will have to be intellectually competent.
Expressing happiness over the launch of full time MA in Journalism in Mass Communication and MA in Electronic Media production and Management courses by SOJNMS, IGNOU, the Minister urged the students of SOJNMS to do lot of hard work to take Journalism to new heights . On the Occasion Dr. Warren Mellor expressed satisfaction over IGNOU adopting the model journalism curriculum developed by UNESCO. IGNOU is the first of its kind in the whole South Asia to adopt UNESCO’s model curriculum on Journalism.
Addressing the Gathering Shri Vinod Mehta warned the new generation of journalism students to be beware of the pitfall in the glamour world of media and urged them to strive for being idealistic with a mission to change the system. Shri Sachidananda Murthy extended support and hope for collaborative arrangements with IGNOU in future.
Prof. Rajasekharan Pillai, the Vice Chancellor of IGNOU presided over the function. He said that with full-time on campus programmes, IGNOU will be venturing out into a new arena and hoped to extend its successful model of inclusive education to full time teaching. Prof. S. N. Singh, Director of the School of Journalism and New Media Studies welcomed the gathering and Dr. Latha Pillai, Pro- Vice Chancellor introduced the activities of the school.
Dr. Warren Mellor, Director a. i. and UNESCO Representative to India, Vinod Mehta, Editor-in- Chief of Outlook and K. S. Sachidananda Murthy, Secretary General, Editors of Guild of India were guest of honours on the occasion.(EOM)