NEW DELHI, May 26: the Indian Journalists Union (IJU ) has asked the media houses not to retrench journalists at a time when they are working in the frontline in the war against Covid-19, risking their lives.
The IJU demanded that the government bail out the media from the present crisis and save the livelihood of thousands of journalists working in numerous media outlets in the country.
IJU president and former member of the Press Council of India, Geetartha Pathak and IJU secretary general and vice president of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Sabina Inderjit said in a statement that “while the hardship faced by
the media houses, particularly the print media during the pandemic is true, the media houses instead of cutting jobs instantly should have waited and asked the government to include media business in the stimulus packages and to offer other incentives to bail out the fourth estate from the crisis.”
In a statement, it said that the union is shocked to know that many journalists will be rendered jobless as a result of closure of a number of newspapers and downsizing of staffs in several TV channels and online portals across the country. The latest one is the Guwahati edition of the Telegraph published by ABP group and Sadin an Assamese weekly published by Pratidin group. The Telegraph published by the ABP Group, which enjoyed the fifth highest in readership in the country, has asked all its reporters from the region, except one, to submit their resignations by 31 May.
Another popular Assamese weekly, Sadin, published from Pratidin group, laid off 13 employees offering a parting
compensation of an additional month’s salary.
Earlier, the IJU issued a press statement on Prag news, a Guwahati-based satellite TV channel for sacking of a pregnant woman journalist from the organization.
