By Matters India Reporter
Chennai, Dec 13, 2022: The bounden duty of the media to become prophetic communicators was stressed at a national convention of journalists in Chennai, southern India.
“As the members of the Fourth Estate and proud citizens of India, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the unsavoury developments in the social, economic, political, technological and religious spheres,” asserted the 27th convention of Christian Journalists, hosted by the Indian Catholic Press Association (ICPA).
The convention was held during the association’s December 8-11 annual general body meeting.
The convention bemoaned the current trend of throttling dissent and free speech, stifling independent media outfits, toxic post-truth culture, planted news, proliferation of fake news, hate speech and poisonous rhetoric on social media.
The assembly of four dozen journalists, editors and media workers, who participated in the convention also noted that with corporate giants swallowing media houses and cosying up with fundamentalists and ultra-nationalists, authoritarianism is getting a free leash.
Central agencies become tools of the state to silence free speech and intimidate journalists and activists. This creates a fertile climate for slow aggression on federalism, language and civil rights,” the assembly noted.
Several media experts and jurists like Peter Alphonse, chairman of the Minorities Commission of Tamil Nadu; Sashi Kumar, chairman of Asian College of Journalism; and Justice K Chandru, retired judge of Madras High Court, offered critical insights into the dark clouds gathering over the mediascape and crippling it.
Archbishop George Antonysamy of Madras-Mylapore, inaugurated the conference. Bishops Henry D’Sousa, chairman of CBCI Commission for Social Communication, and Salvadore Lobo, who has been ICPA chaplain for a decade, offered vital inputs during the convention.
The conference called upon media professionals to: Oppose totalitarianism and fascism in the bud as it is a do-or-die situation; Desist from cronyism with the powers-that-be; Tell the truth come what may as the Gospel mandates us; Have transformative content in the news; Stand diligently for the truth at a time when the cartelization of the media is happening; Be prophetic voices of truth and justice in a “post-truth” culture; Put up a stiff existential fight to protect the Constitution.
The assembly urged media professionals to draw inspiration from Pope Francis who has said: “Journalism is not an easy mission. It is complicated to think, to meditate, to study more deeply, to stop and collect ideas and to study the contexts and precedents of a piece of news. The risk, as you well know, is to be overwhelmed by the news instead of being able to make sense of it. This is why, I encourage you to preserve and cultivate that sense of mission that is at the origin of your choice. And I will do so with three verbs that I believe characterize good journalism: listen, investigate and report.”