New Delhi, Jul 19: Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday hailed the contribution of media for empowering the people with necessary information, analysis and perspectives about various aspects of the outbreak of COVID-19 and partnering with the anxious people in the ongoing fight against the disease.
Taking social media Facebook for his post titled “Media: Our Partner in Corona Times”, he dealt at length with the role of media over the last few months since the virus outbreak and complimented the media and media persons for “ for effectively discharging their core function of informing, educating and empowering the people to cope with the pandemic and for being an important part of our lives during the crisis as trusted partners”.
Naidu noted that media also set the agenda for debates in the parliamentary institutions with analytical insights into various aspects of the pandemic and it’s impacts on different sections of the society.
Referring to special communication campaigns undertaken by media to promote preventive measures like wearing masks, social distancing, frequent washing of hands, healthy eating, regular exercises, spiritual orientation, he said that spirit of the media for pursuing the mission of informing the people despite running into tough time itself.
“With the economy contracting due to restrictions, advertisement revenues have dried up. Scale of operations had to be adjusted and a good number of media persons had to take a cut in the pay. But, by and large, the media persisted with the mission of empowering the people, when it is needed the most”, Naidu said.
The Rajya Sabha Chairman also said “I follow more closely the print media. The amount of space provided for corona virus and the unfolding pandemic, outscored even war time reporting. Innovative product spaces have been introduced and persisted with to cater to the information hungry readers. Extensive analyses of various aspects of the disease and its impacts still continue in a mission mode.”
However, he sounded caution regarding some sections of television noting that they should have avoided and should, henceforth, desist from hyping the situation as creating panic would further destabilize the already anxious minds of the people.
