Srinagar: Raising concerns about the conditions of journalists and newspaper in Kashmir, senior PDP leader and Ex VC JK Cements, Er Nazir Ahmad Yatoo on Friday said the government is trying its best to suppress the media in Kashmir, by threatening journalists.
In a statement issued here, PDP leader said that “The media in Kashmir has been forced to be obedient to government, and if any outlet represents public sentiments, the centre government stops issuing them ads. Every day, journalists in Kashmir are fighting for their rights to speak out freely, protect media pluralism and counter the ills of monopolies.
“Kashmir has now become a place, where the media has now been forced to make centre happy, by not representing the public voice fairly with equal access,” Yatoo said.
“At a time when the world is fighting against the deadly virus, the journalists in Kashmir are seeking attention to exercise their legal, ethical and professional mandate to intervene in the issue of threatening.
Yatoo reiterated that media in Kashmir is most professional and has retained its neutrality even at the cost of lives.
“Interestingly, booking journalists came at a time when the media in general and the Kashmir media in particular, is putting up a huge and costly battle by working round the hours to give exact details about COVID-19, adding that, Kashmir is quite prone to rumours, which routinely overtake facts as it entails costs and consequences.
Yatoo said, the main casualty has been the ability of the citizen to find out the truth in newspapers, as journalists are no more free to write true version.
The government in this situation should have intervened and helped improve the quality of the reportage. Instead, they ars intervening inversely by booking journalists, he said.
A negative intervention in this situation is clearly aimed at slaying the institutions of media. “Hitting the journalists will impact the state and status of both the journalists and the journalism in Kashmir,” Yatoo said.
He said, in India, politicians and corporate entities are making increasingly underhanded investments in news media, and the press is failing to serve as a potent, unbiased tool to inform public perception, due to which, it is unable to provide an arena for public debates where issues of shared interest can be represented and discussed.
“Media outlets, as well as journalists in Kashmir, are openly threatened now and controlled by the centre through ads, which is using the media to undermine the relevance of their opponents with scant regard for an overall public interest,” Er Nazir Yatoo said.
He further said, Kashmiri journalism, with its lack of freedom, cannot be trusted now—as it has forced to share governments view.
Yatoo said, For a truly free press in Kashmir, the centre must ensure that agencies and political interests do not affect press, by issuing summons to journalists
