Journalists battered and rattled as jobs slip out of their hands

The COVID-19 lockdown has battered and bruised journalists as never before. Across the country, editions of various newspapers have closed down. Unemployment looms large. Those who have lost jobs may number in the thousands. Those holding on are facing hefty wage cuts. Usha Rai, senior journalist based in Delhi, has told me that many journalists in India have been asked to go on furlough, or leave without pay in many media establishments. 

Giving examples, she mentioned how in the Northeast, a pregnant woman journalist was shown the door because her publication has no rules for maternity leave. All this is happening when, in the best traditions of the profession, journalists at great risk to their lives are going all out to report the pandemic from the frontlines – from the streets of the worst hit slums of Dharavi and in COVID-19 hospitals to travelling in trains with migrants and reporting from quarantine centres in villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In fact, many journalists are frontline corona warriors, no less than doctors, health workers or the police.

Four journalists have died in the line of duty to coronavirus. In April, Aajkaal’s senior photojournalist Ronny Roy, 57, is suspected to have died of the virus in Kolkata; on May 8, Pankaj Kulshreshta, 57, deputy editor of a leading Hindi newspaper from Agra died of COVID- 19; in Mumbai Roshan Dias of TV-9 died on May 22; and in Delhi, Doordarshan’s senior camera person, Yogesh Kumar, died on May 28.

Ironically, mainstream media and edit pages are silent on the crisis confronting journalists. The National Alliance for Journalists, the Delhi Union of Journalists and the Brihanmumbai Union of Journalists jointly filed a PIL in the Supreme Court on April 16, challenging the job loss and wage cuts in the media. The PIL points out that layoffs and salary cuts have been effected during the lockdown to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The PIL has asked the Union Government, the Indian Newspaper Society and the News Broadcasters Association to ensure that media employers do not misuse the lockdown for such arbitrary action against employees.

Observing that the role of journalists and media personnel can neither be underestimated nor undermined during COVID-19 pandemic, the Karnataka High Court has directed the Central and State governments to consider as per the law, a representation made by a petitioner seeking payment of compensation in case a journalist or media personnel dies of the infection, The Hindu has reported. “... just like police, doctors, nurses, government personnel and others who are carrying out essential duties, in the same way, journalists and other media personnel are on the field so as to disseminate and convey correct information to citizens about the impact of the pandemic and other information from the world over,” the court observed. The petitioner had given representation for paying compensation of ₹50 lakh to the kin of a mediaperson who dies of COVID-19 on the lines of provision made for healthcare personnel.

The Bench also observed that “journalists, whether working for the press or electronic media, either on the field or in studios/offices, play a significant and important role. While discharging their duties, they face immense challenges in times such as the current pandemic as they expose themselves to the risk of being infected even as they perform their duties on the frontiers.”

*You can find the detailed story in the upcoming issue of Vidura, the journal from the Press Institute of India.