Taking serious umbrage to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's suggestion of imposing a ban on media advertisements by the government and PSUs for two years, journalists' associations on Thursday said such a view was "myopic" and if implemented would be a death knell for the industry.
The Press Association (PA), Indian Journalists Union (IJU), National Union of Journalists (NUJ-I) and Working News Cameramen's Association (WNCA) said such a measure will undermine the role of the media at this crucial hour and this coming from the Congress chief is shocking, the joint statement issued by the media bodies said.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi made various suggestions for fighting COVID-19 including imposing a "complete ban on media advertisements - television, print and online - by the government and Public Sectors Undertakings (PSUs) for a period of two years".
The associations termed the suggestion as "completely myopic and lacking in reason".
The effects of the ravaging pandemic has put the media industry, particularly print media under severe financial stress and several newspapers have already suspended printing, the statement said.
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Underlining that many journalists across the country have lost their jobs due to this crisis, the associations said stopping advertisements to the media at this juncture would be the death knell to the industry, the role of which is very crucial in the fight against the deadly infection.
The associations said the present crisis has given rise to a vicious mill of fake news and the people are thirsty for genuine, responsible and reliable news.
The mainstream media is the only answer for this situation which calls for aiding and helping the media industry for the good of the country in these testing times, instead of cutting the finances by banning advertisements, they said.
The signatories to the statement include Jaishankar Gupta and CK Nayak, president and general secretary of PA, respectively; K Sreenivas Reddy and Balwinder Singh Jammu, president and secretary general of IJU; Rasbihari, Prasanna Mohanty, president and secretary General of NUJ-I and SN Sinha, Sondeep Shankar president and general secretary of WNCA respectively.
The statement comes a day after the Indian Newspaper Society also condemned Gandhi's suggestion.
The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) had also "strongly deplored" Sonia Gandhi's suggestion, saying the Congress president's call was "highly demoralising" for media personnel.
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