Church leaders in India have urged Christian journalists to stand for the truth and the voiceless.More than 100 media persons and students of communication from all over India attended the 25th National Convention of Christian Journalists in the national capital on Feb. 29.”Media is a vocation and a mission, so Christian journalists have a duty to stand for the truth and speak for Dalits, tribals, the downtrodden and the voiceless,” Archbishop Anil Joseph Thomas Couto of Delhi said during his keynote address.”Unfortunately, the watchdog has become a lapdog in the race for sensationalism, sometimes not even checking the facts, and it is very dangerous for a democratic country. The role of the media is to tell the truth and only the truth, but it has become a casualty. It is sad that they have diverted from their responsibilities.”
The convention, organized by the Indian Catholic Press Association (ICPA), addressed the theme “Journalism today: Pragmatism triumphs over principles.”An association of Catholic newspapers and periodicals, news agencies and publishing houses, journalists and teachers of journalism, the ICPA is one of the oldest and most active Catholic press organizations in Asia.Founded in 1963 by the editors of three dailies (Deepika, Kerala Times and Thozhilali) and of five weeklies (The Examiner, The New Leader, The Herald, Sanjivan and Raknno), the ICPA now has over 110 members, including some of the country’s leading Catholic periodicals and publishing houses and several Catholic journalists and teachers of journalism.Patna Jesuit Father John Barrett, the founder-editor of Hindi Catholic weekly Sanjivan, brought together the editors of these Catholic periodicals in Delhi to launch the association.
(Extracted from ucanews.com)
COMMENTS