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Kathmandu Monday March 04, 2002 Falgun 20, 2058.
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Think twice
I am a regular reader and a well wisher of
The Kathmandu Post. But your front-page photo showing a burnt-down body of a man in Gujrat
thoroughly disturbed me. I was aghast and so was my wife. The picture is quite provocative
and it can instigate sectarian violence even in Nepal; it looks too human to be inhuman.
Instead of so prominently displaying the picture of human suffering at its worst, you
could have used the picture of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister shaking hands with the
Norwegian diplomat; it would have instilled some hope for peace in our minds at times like
these. Or you could very well have put a picture of a very beautiful Nepali landscape.
Just as the Hindu deity Hanuman could not
gauge the might of his arms before trying to hold an entire mountain on his one hand, it
seems Nepali media also does not know how powerful and sensitive it can be. Media can play
a very important role in nurturing young democracy like ours. Media can propagate riots
like the Hrithik Roshan episode and it can motivate people to return to their homeland and
develop it (Kantipur’s Feb 19, Democracy Day Supplement). Therefore I request TKP to
think twice before going ahead with provocative pictures like the one you used on Sunday
and before publishing cheap and sensational news and articles. Please pause and think
about the impacts of such stuff upon society like ours.
Samudra Shikhar
Kathmandu |
