World Press Freedom Day Salute from Pilani Rajasthan

May 5, 2008 - PRLog -- With potential to make fact as fiction and fiction as fact, media is the most powerful entity on earth as they control the minds of the masses. Today in journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right. In this age where old news is cold news, priority is to get it first rather than get it right.

The media fancies in the news if it makes a good story, without much regard for the factual accuracy and ensures that truth is lost in semantics and theatrics. Much of today’s jaundiced traditional journalism finds fertile ground in would-be journalists whose motives have little to do with social conscience, disclosure of injustice, uncovering wrongdoing or giving voice to the voiceless.

Recently a lady journalist with name and fame in a widely circulated and highly respected newspaper in India has been trying to get away stating that Vidya Vihar Nagarpalika where BITS Pilani is located has a Child Sex ratio of 871 despite having a high literacy rate of 89.80 percent and goes about concluding that high literacy has a strong correlation with low CSR. One wonders if the concerned journalist bothered to know that more than 50 percent of the total population of 14366 in Vidya Vihar happens to be students from all over India studying and staying in hostels and not involved in family raising activities. Who knows the reputed journalist may even conclude that less the population of  a country more the number of prisoners since USA has less than 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of world’s prisoners,

For its doom, the current state of traditional news media must take the blame for public’s general lack of information which is vital for responsible citizenship in a democracy. Traditional media has always focused much on urban news coverage. Any news coverage of suburban and rural events by traditional media has worked on by and large pre-arranged procedures only.

Online journalism, or e-journalism, or cyber news, is journalism practiced online. While traditional media is linear, online journalism takes a non-linear approach to news. The Internet, web logs, search engines, and RSS feeds are the new tools of computer assisted reporting (CAR). Free press releases distribution services built on the principles of search engine optimization have added an exciting dimension to online journalism and press freedom.

World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1991 as a day "to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom; to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession." Press freedom is considered to be a cornerstone of human rights and a guarantee of other freedoms. This day is celebrated each year on 3rd May and the focus this year is on the freedom of the press and the “Access to information and the empowerment of people”.

Pilani, 28.22N, 75.33E. is a small town in Rajasthan where Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani which is one among the top universities in India today is located. BITS has the reputation of pioneering the online examinations for admissions through the path breaking BITSAT and setting a benchmark in industry university collaborations offers degrees in various disciplines presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa campuses and in the short future at Hyderabad campus apart from an array of work integrated learning programmes for HRD of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates.

No one may be able to change the latitude and longitude of Pilani but media has a role to play to change the altitude of Pilani.

Today, the happenings at BITS Pilani reach everywhere across the globe from Australia to America as well as Arctic to the Antarctic in no time thanks to the Free Press Release Services offered by agencies such as PRlog.org and the celebrations of World Press Freedom Day will not be complete without acknowledging the stellar role played by PRLog.org.

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Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani Rajasthan is a Deemed University (established under section 3 of the UGC Act. 1956 under notification no. F.12-23/63.U-2 dated 18th June, 1964) running educational programmes both on-campus as well as off-campus, offering degrees at all three-tiers, namely, Integrated First Degree, Higher Degree and Ph.D.

Website: www.bits-pilani.ac.in