Media should offer investigative contents, stakeholders say

Kathmandu, March 2: Stakeholders have said that the state-owned media should offer investigative and analytical news contents.     

At a capacity building programme for the journalists organized by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Rastriya Samaachar Samiti (RSS) today, RSS Executive Chairman Dharmendra Jha said the investigative news reporting and dissemination should be made effective and knowledge transfer to the new generation from senior journalists was imperative for this.     

Senior journalist Rajendra Dahal said the state-owned media should shift their focus towards investigative contents from the contents of the current affairs. For this to happen, the role of RSS will be further crucial, Dahal added.     

Likewise, journalist Bishwamani Pokharel said that most of the online portals have used the news contents of the RSS and added that the capacity building programmes for the state-owned media should be prioritized to create quality contents.     

Similarly, RSS General Manager Siddharaj Rai underscored the need for shift in the mode of news dissemination in public media outlets, transitioning from the incident-based news materials to content-oriented news materials.     

Likewise, Mamata Bastola, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, pledged to give continuity to such capacity enhancement programmes in coming years, citing the success of the Ministry's first one-day capacity building training.     

Participants of the training such as Bhauch Prasad Yadav of Gorkhapatra Daily and Sarita Khanal of Radio Nepal agreed that the training had further honed their journalistic skills. They both recognized the need for the public media to adopt and pursue investigative journalism.     

Present on the capacity building programmes were the journalists from RSS, Gorkhapatra Daily, Radio Nepal and Nepal Television.(RSS)