Newspaper Of Nation

Gorkhapatra, the country’s oldest publication, celebrated its 122nd anniversary, the other day. A living witness to the nation’s political, economic, social and cultural vicissitudes, the Gorkhapatra has been disseminating official and unbiased information to the readers. Its role in raising the people’s socio-cultural consciousness has been hailed by all segments of the society. It has been continuously running since it first came out in 1958 B.S. This is indeed a rare feat in the media sector in the entire South Asian region. By bringing out special pages in 38 national languages, it has helped protect and promote various languages from being extinct. The daily has transformed itself into a robust public media though many regimes came and went in course of time. It is striving to move with pace of time in terms of content quality, look enhancement, technological adoption and market outreach. 

Highlighting the changing priority of the daily, Minister for Communication and Information Technology Gyanendra Bahadur Karki has said the Gorkhapatra should be developed as a paper of all general public covering their maximum issues along with information of the state and the government. Minister Karki made this remark while addressing a special function organised to mark the daily’s 122nd year of publication and 60th anniversary of the Gorkhapatra Corporation (GC). With the government’s full commitment to press freedom and freedom of speech and expression, Gorkhapatra is doing its best to reflect the aspirations of the people from different social, economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Born during the autocratic Rana regime, Gorkhapatra tried to adopt pro-public approach as guided by the Sanad (decree) issued by its founder and reformist Rana prime minister Dev Sumsher. He had issued ethical guideline to editor and staff of Gorkhapatra that it should not publish the praise of him or those in power. The daily has been attempting to emulate the professional mantra of its founder. In his keynote speech, Minister Karki has rightly said that the paper should place utmost priority on professionalism with timely adoption of new technological changes so as to make it digitally smart. He said that the government is extending all cooperation to the corporation to make its publications competitive, credible and appealing to the readers.

Gorkhapatra can deal with the new challenges created by the internet, market dynamism and shifting interests of the readers only when everybody associated with it works in tandem. The present management has taken various initiatives for its quality growth. It has imparted training to its technical staff on the latest use of press technology. Similarly, the government has approved the corporation’s by-law to open all stalled career development process of the employees like fresh recruitment and promotion. The process of archiving all published contents has been forwarded. Gorkhapatra and The Rising Nepal have begun to come out in attractive new look, which has received positive response from the readers.

Gorkhapatra has been often described as a government’s mouthpiece but it is a misnomer. It is true that Gorkhapatra gives topmost priority to the policy and programmes of the government but it also gives due space to the voices of opposition parties and divergent social groups in an objective manner. It is a state media in which all citizens have their voice and ownership. It is working to be a bridge between the people and the government, thereby becoming the paper of the nation and all of its citizens.