Prashanta Jyoti Baruah, Executive Editor, The Assam
Tribune, delivered a lecture on ‘Media for Development’ for the
participants of the Refresher Course, here in UGC-Human Resource Development
Centre on Oct. 24th, 2017. He said that development projects should not be at the
cost of people’s lives, culture, property and security. Development Journalism
demands responsible journalism. Media has responsibility towards the society. In
this context, Baruah asserted that how the Assam Tribune has played
great role in the development of Assam, since it was founded in 1939 in
Dibrugarh.
“Development Journalism is
significant in Assam”, PJ Baruah said and discussed on how under Ahom rule of
Burma, Assam suffered atrocities and underdevelopment. “British colonialism expanded
to Assam in 1926 and since then,it invested about 200 million rupees on tea
gardens. Development of tea gardens and oil refinery changed the face of
economy in Assam”, Baruah mentioned.
However, Baruah also pointed that Development Journalism
began in India very late. Colonial rule did not encourage industries in India. Since
development news was absent during colonial time, political news dominated
India. Only after independence, development news started and newspapers covered
developmental stories of five years plans. The planning commission then brought
out Yojana.
Baruah, expressed that due to
fear of China, Indian government refrained from investing in North East, but now,
Indian government has taken a strong step to fight with China and invest in the
development of North East. The face of Assam is changing. For instance, he
said, due to
investment, Naga insurgencies are being resolved and Naga people are realizing that
problems should be resolved, without which, developmental process cannot progress.
Without development, peace and security cannot be realized.
PJ Baruah explained hard and soft news and emphasized
how hard news is reported immediately. The style of inverted pyramid is used
for writing hard news. Summary lead is mostly used for writing hard news.
Inverted pyramid style helps edit the story as per page setting. Soft news, he
explained, is an analytical story. Background of the event is important in soft
story writing. The style of inverted pyramid is not followed in soft story
writing. He stressed how both types of story writings are used in Development Journalism.
Development reporting is significant because it helps in making policy and
implements it. He suggested how participants could write their subjects with
developmental content for the publications in newspapers. Due to constrain of
space, newspapers cannot give space for an article of more than 1100 words.
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