HOW HAS COVID-19 REVEALED THE ROLE OF JOURNALIST?

 

Well we can start this discussion on the note of gaining & loosing as we all come to know in these past years and predominantly during pandemic how journalism played such vital role in our regular life updates. When no one were allowed to work during pandemic only 2 or 3 professions were working and today we are going to highlight one of that profession known as JOURNALISM.

Can anyone explain why it was essential for them to work during such time when everyone was stuck between life & death?

Considering about the importance of media during the crucial time of pandemic how it helped everyone to keep updates around the world. While focusing on such events to inform the public during these uncertain times, newsrooms across the country have made pandemic coverage a priority. But the ever-changing and sometimes unverified nature of COVID-19 data being released has left journalists and researches with challenges in providing accurate information to the public. Covering about some irregular & unnatural events which took place during pandemic it was difficult for the reporters to hold themselves back and make it work because they were not only working for themselves but also for the sake of our people. While people were sitting and watching TV, journalist were working on field without hesitantly giving a thought about their health, as per the records some of the journalist stick to their work so dedicatedly that on the other hand there family & friends were suffering from Covid-19 in hospital, some of them were not able to travel to India during pandemic just because of the situation those who were working outside country.

Awareness spread through technologies & the scary scenario of fake news!

We may haven’t noticed about such technical developments, especially smart phone technologies, the spread of social networks, easy Internet access and its low cost, are elements that together caused profound changes in the behavior of readers and viewers, exemplified by the massive migration of traditional journalism to digital spaces. Print media has faced such issue during pandemic that it has to be closed in some of the countries, not because of some fake articles but also because such population wants to read & listen what they want not what is actually the truth. Although, we also worked together during the time of pandemic we helped our students to work on field efficiently. Both of our news channels HCN & HIMCOM were telecasting proper news with accurate data, our HIMCOM aspirants covered live news although all of them were uploaded in our HCN news. Briefly, if we discuss about our pandemic data then most of the time in many channels some fake news also got viral which scared the population and affected them mentally, hence we HIMCOM regularly updated & analyses the statistics of procure data with health welfare organization.

More than a third of journalists have changed their journalistic specialization to focus on covering the news of the covid-19 pandemic and preparing reports on its effects. The vast majority of respondents said that the pandemic has caused a decline in levels of press freedom. We HIMCOM highly believe on giving such recognition to the media industry because they are working on behalf of everyone to supply the best and most accurate news to everyone in the given time so that we can reach to the best while sitting in our own shell.

--Megha Gupta