People's Democracy

        Wanted A Media Commission: DUJ

THE Delhi Union of Journalists(DUJ) has called upon the new central government to set up a Media Commission  to look into the entire gamut of the news industry, covering print, broadcast and electronic media, which has undergone a sea change since the last Press Commission was set up in the 80’s.

The commission must comprise eminent journalists, jurists and media experts. It should focus on dangerous trends emerging since the globalisation process began like monopoly players gobbling up the small and medium newspapers endangering the freedom of the press, the DUJ said.

In a statement issued on June 10, the DUJ president S K Pande and general secretary Javed Faridi, further called for immediate steps to ensure that the media does not become merely a market for advertisers, communalists and peddlers of a non-scientific temper that come in the way of developing a modern India with a secular pluralistic character.

Drawing attention to the pitiable working conditions of journalists, the statement said with an outmoded Working Journalists Act, jungle law was rampant and hire and fire had become the order of the day. The Act should immediately be amended to bring in its purview the entire community of journalists whether working in print or electronic media or on the net, it said.

WAGE BOARD

The DUJ also demanded immediate constitution of a new wage board for journalists as the last wage board had been set up a decade back and wages have remained stagnant since then though the profits of the newspaper owners have soared since then. The salaries in other industries have been revised twice since then, it said.

To expedite the matter, the DUJ has also sought the prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s intervention in the matter and also intends to present him a memorandum signed by members of the union soon. In this connection, the union also hailed the recent unity moves between the All India Newspaper Employees Federation (AINEF) and the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) along with the all-India UNI and PTI federations.