Caution before speed: CM advises scribes

Exhorting journalists to live up to their responsibilities as guides of society, Chief Minister K Rosaiah on Monday said that the present trend of neglecting fact in the interest of speed will have an adverse effect on the media in the longer term.

Mr Rosaiah was speaking at a seminar on ‘Protection of Media Values’ organised by the Andhra Pradesh Union Of Working Journalists (APUWJ) at Madupu Chandraiah Hall where he advised the scribes to be cautious over not getting carried away by the need for urgency and sending the news to scroll in the news channels without proper verification.

The Chief Minister regretted that values were on a downward spiral in all professions, and exhorted journalists to safeguard these values, so that the entire society gets benefited.

He recalled the contribution of eminent journalists like late CY Chintamani, Khasa Subbarao, Kotamraju Rama Rao, Kundurthi, Chalapathi Rao and others to the nation.

Mr Rosaiah also assured that he would examine the demands of the journalists and try to solve them after journalists submitted a memorandum to him over their long-pending demands.

Revealing that the government was spending Rs 1960 on every journalist on Mediclaim scheme,  he said that the number of beneficiaries  has increased to 11,200 from the 8,864 last year.

Responding to complaints in the issuing of the ‘Arogya Bima cards’ for eligible journalists, he said that these would be given through the ‘Adhaar’, the unique identity number programme initiated by the Centre. He added that till date, approximately 800 forms for Health card were issued.

Mr Rosaiah also condemned attacks on journalists and said that the process of setting up Committees to look into the issue would be speeded up.

Responding to the house plots for journalist, Mr Rosaiah said that this was an issue which would be looked into and his government would try its best to solve the Court cases on  the land issue.

The journalists union leaders had earlier submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister with six main demands. These demands were that the provisions of the Working Journalists Act, which provide for job security to the working journalists should be strictly implemented; The Working Journalists Act should be amended to bring the electronic media journalists under its purview; Corpus of the Journalists Welfare Fund should be raised to Rs 10 crore; pension facility to all journalists; Professional Committees, including State Accreditation Committee, Journalists Welfare Committee and High Power Committee should be reconstituted as some of these bodies’ terms had expired and these Panels should be empowered to look into attacks on journalists, and guidelines for house sites allotment to working journalists in Hyderabad and all districts.