Implement The Act

ALONG with the boom in Nepalese media in the post-1990 era, journalists began to raise their voices for better working conditions and minimum safeguards in their professional life, just like those engaged in other vocations were doing. It is but natural that demands for changes in the way professional journalists were treated by media owners would get louder as more and more journalists realised that their working conditions required vast improvements and that their professional existence should not be based on the whims and fancies of media owners. With this new attitude, journalists’ professional institutions, like Federation of Nepalese Journalists, began to lobby for a working journalists’ act in the mid-1990s. After much lobbying, a Working Journalists Act was passed in December 1996. Various clauses of the Act provide safeguards against exploitation of journalistic hands by media owners. It has made provisions for provident fund, medical allowance, gratuity, Dashain allowance, daily and tour allowances, insurance and various kinds of leave and promotions for working journalists. Going beyond just emoluments and benefits, though, the Act also enjoins on mediapersons to follow certain norms in their professional conduct and duty. For instance, it makes journalists morally obliged to execute their duties honestly and forbids them to accept any donation, gifts or presents without the permission of management. All in all, both the letter and spirit of the Act are laudable.

However, to the dismay of working journalists, all the fine clauses in the Act have not been worth much as they have largely remained confined to the legal book. Though journalists’ working conditions in these past years have improved somewhat, the new developments have more to do with the fresh demands for qualified journalistic hands that an expansion of the media market created, than with any effort to earnestly apply what the legislation provides for. As a result, most of the journalists continue to see their working conditions no better than when there was no such Act in place. So, one legitimate question is: what’s the use of an Act that is never implemented? Given this, journalists could find it rather heartening that Minister for Information and Communications Jayaprakash Prasad Gupta disclosed at a function on Tuesday that necessary preparations had already been made to implement the Act. The move towards its implementation is most welcome. When the Act begins to be actually enforced, journalists will have a reason to celebrate.

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