JOURNALISTS AND JOURNALISM

It was on 3 October 2021 the Nobel Prize Committee announced the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2021. The prize was awarded to two journalists – Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. After 1935, journalism is recognized by the Nobel Prize Committee for the Peace Prize. It is appreciated by all the journalists of the world also all those who love peace. In fact, journalism can also work for bringing peace to our world. Who will not like peace? It is difficult to bring peace, but one can fight for peace by speaking and writing. There are millions of journalists who work towards this goal. 

Journalism is a subject taught in universities and colleges. Many students prefer to join the course and become professional journalists. Nowadays journalism is a lucrative profession. Both men and women get interested in journalism and try to excel in their jobs. We do see young boys and girls who go to remote places, flooded areas, war happening places, volcano affected mountains and many other dangerous places to collect true information and report to the various media to broadcast. Such information helps the common people and the general public to take proper precautions to protect themselves. They help society by providing the day to day information.

Another way the journalists help society is to find out the wrongdoings of officials appointed by the government. Journalists are free to enquire and collect the information to make it public so that the government can take appropriate actions. Journalism is a sort of watchdog for democracy. Politicians are interviewed and questioned by journalists and they are answerable to the journalists. They are answerable to the journalists also in a way people’s representatives. So journalism is as important and necessary as the judicial system.

Journalists are very good at putting inconvenient questions to anyone who holds important positions in any organization including the government. Generally, journalists bring out the inner thoughts of VIPs so that the public will come to know about them. Journalists are good at gathering and analyzing news from various sources. They are also good at writing and communicating. There are many journalists who have turned out to be the best authors of books.

Journalism is also doing its mistakes. Some organizations bribe journalists to project their views and also work against justice. News gets popular all over the world within seconds. Therefore, it’s in the hands of journalists to make good news bad or bad news good. Journalists discuss every subject with a panel of people belonging to political party spokespersons as well as fellow journalists. They bring in a topic of the day for discussion. The media person introduces the subject and asks for the views from the members of the panel. Sometimes they shout r intervene when one of the members speaks. All these are watched by people like us. sometimes it looks like entertainment and at times it looks stupid.

Moreover, journalists are knowledgeable persons in their own fields like sports, politics, science, entertainment, travel etc. There are good investigative journalists who gather relevant data on an issue to discuss with different panels and important people. Journalists are generally known to all political leaders like Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Members of Parliament. Most of the common man’s problems are brought to the concerned leaders by journalists. So they are in a way friends of the common man. We have to appreciate the efforts put forward by each and every journalist to keep up the prestige of journalism. (nnnov2021)