Chandigarh, December 10, 2017 : Hailing media as the fourth and an important pillar of democracy, Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar said that as the government could not interfere in their right to free expression enshrined in our Constitution, the media should frame its own code of conduct to ensure that whatever media persons write or telecast, is in the interest of the society and the nation.
Khattar was speaking as chief guest at the concluding session of the two-day national meet of the Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees Organizations, here today.
The contribution of media to the society could not be ignored in the present-day world but maintaining credibility is a major challenge before the media. If they are able to maintain credibility, they would certainly be successful in their mission or profession, he said.
Exhorting the media persons to take media as a mission, he said in the pre-Independence days, leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Lokmanya Tilak had taken media as a mission, and not as a profession, with the aim to get the country freed from the clutches of Britishers.
As far as challenges are concerned, media and politicians are facing almost same challenges. While narrating an incident, the Chief Minister said when Mr Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of the country he was asked by the media about his biggest challenge. Mr Modi replied that maintaining good image of his fraternity was his biggest challenge.
Similarly, to achieve success in the profession, media persons should maintain its image and credibility. Today, professionals like advocates, doctors and media persons need to work with missionary zeal by sticking to ethics for betterment of the society.
Now-a-days, media has grown manifold and so has the competition among them. The aim of the media should be to work to eliminate social evils from the society, enlighten the people on several issues and refrain from giving news which is not based on facts, he said.
Referring to the social media, the Chief Minister said the world had become a village and this form of media was emerging as the fastest way of disseminating news from one part of the world to another as compared to electronics and print media. But authenticity of the news should be verified before circulating it on the social media. He urged media persons to separate news from views as this could present someone in bad light before the readers.
The CM said the state government had implemented the pension scheme for media persons in the state and the other announcements made by him would also be implemented soon. Media rooms have been set up in five districts and the process to set up such rooms in the remaining districts is in progress. Haryana is a media-friendly state and everything possible would be done for the welfare of media persons, he added.
Those present included Director, Information, Public Relations and Languages Department, Sameer Pal Srow, Media Advisor to the Chief Minister, Amit Arya, and a large number of media persons.
The two-day meet on ‘challenges before media and media ethics’ concluded today with a resolution demanding that the scope of the Working Journalist Act should be strengthened by brining the electronic media and all other media persons within its ambit.
It was also stressed that the Central Government should immediately setup a new wage board for journalist and non journalist.
The two day meet organized by the Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees Organizations saw participation of delegates from 22 states, representing six national level media organizations- All India Newspapers Employees Federation, Indian Journalist Union, National Union of Journalist (I), IFWJ, Federation of PTI Employees Unions, UNI Workers’ Union. The meet was hosted by The Tribune Employees Union.
After independence, it was the first national meet for the journalist and non journalist in Chandigarh. The event yesterday saw participating on the opening day by Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh as chief guest at Chandigarh University, Gharuan.
Speaking at a session on the concluding day, Panjab University Vice Chancellor Prof. AK Grover said the university’s history was associated with newspapers. “Dyal Singh Majithia and Bal Gangadhar Tilak started newspapers to involve educated people in Indian governance”, he said adding that Majithia was an educationists and social reformer.

Punjab Governor and UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore, who was the chief guest in the first session on the concluding day, said an era of challenge had started for newspapers. “This was an age of innovative interruption. You have to find way to overcome you challenges like state of contractual staff, constitution of wage board, visual media, availability of news on mobile”.
The Governor said there was always demand for good writers.
Union Minister of Steel, Birender Singh, who was the chief guest in the second session, said information technology has affected the traditional media. The demand for newspapers has affected due to digital media.
Leaders of the Confederation demanded that the Working Journalist Act should be amended to include contractual and electronic media persons. They said pension benefit, started by the Haryana Government, should be extended to all newspapers employees.