Media men should be guided more by their duties than by regulations - Bipul Pokhrel, Swarg Dwari FM, Dang

My doorway into the journalism sector should have been around the year 1996-97.

I got a brake in the then Jan Manch weekly that was followed by another long stretch at the Ghatana Ra Bichar weekly. Later I joined the Himalaya Times Daily.

At the moment, I am coupled with the SWARG-DWARI FM Radio station which is put on air from Dang district.

Just this week completes my three weeks stay at the said FM. I am working here as News Editor, which is naturally a testing job given the conflict situation in the country more so in my part.

Our FM station provides top priority to the local issues and the grievances of the local people. The rest is political issues confronting the nation of late.

I must make a clean breast that we at the FM station have been working under awesome pressures both from the government security forces and the Maoist rebels. In a way we have become the victim of the prevailing situation in the country. Nevertheless, we have taken up the challenge with great courage.

Undoubtedly, working in the districts is not that an easy task as it should be, hopefully, in Kathmandu or any part of the country where ample security prevails.

The main divergence in between the print and the electronic media, to me, is that print media is considered by the locals as a extravagance because not all can afford to buy a set of newspapers. On the contrary, electronic media is practically free and is fast. Again, since it is a very fast media, the feedback is also instant and is very high. We receive the feedbacks in good numbers which encourages us to improve our coverage and content.

In effect, our station is popular among the middle and the class is in the lowest rung of the society for this class can't afford to buy different newspapers for a variety of reasons.

Selection of words? Yes! We have to be very careful in the selection of the words to be aired. However, we prefer to compose the stories that are easily understood by the listeners. We use the locally spoken dialects so that people could understand it in their own language.

Regarding government's intervention in any form or the other, well no such event as such has happened as yet. However, at times we feel threatened and experience mental torture. The fact is that the government agencies would wish to see the news and other stories aired their way. On the contrary, the other side that is the Maoists, too possess a preference and would like to listen to the news being aired as per their political inclination. This is obvious and natural too. But then we can satisfy both at a time.

Thus is only but natural that both the Maoists and the Army men while inviting us for a briefing prefer to know about our background in advance.

Have you confronted the Maoists? Oh! Naturally. Of Course! We stumble upon them at times. While we meet, it has been seen that they try to teach us the very basics of journalism. Those teaching us albeit were not even SLC level candidates. This has been an unusual phenomenon for us but then we are used to that.

Regarding the sustainability of the FM station on its own, let me admit that to a greater extent we depend on our own. However, we expect financial growth in the coming months. It is the aid from a variety os sources that makes us to exist prestigiously and take it for granted that we have not compromised our integrity so far and would continue to maintain that to the last breath.

We should have a total number of listeners, roughly speaking, about ten lakhs and the number is increasing. Our broadcast covers a wide area comprising of Dang, Salyan, and the western belts of the Rolpa and Rukum.

As regards my team's efforts in making smooth release of our two journalists, Durga Thapa and Dekendra Thapa, well the Maoists assures us that they would release both. However, the day they assured that they would release our friends, one Dekendra Thapa was killed much ahead of their assurances. All that they did is to free the Surkhet media man, Durga Thapa.

To me, it appears that the high command and the grassroots' cadres don't have much harmonization in between them which causes such calamities. Interestingly, the Maoists could not justify the killing of Dekendra Thapa. What I believe is that the high command has delegated the powers of justice to the lower level. This level does justice on its own while the high command is busy in interpreting high-sounding theories. The two levels differ here.

Nevertheless, they apologized and told the press that they don't have a policy of killing of the media men.

I must confess that being in this challenging job, I am satisfied. While I return to my home, my sweet home in the evening after completion of the job, I consider my self to be the happiest person on the earth.

I am also in knowledge of the fact that some are misusing the ethics drafted for the media men. But since we are operating from a small place, any body treating with contempt the ethics or crossing the limits gets exposed. Apart from these, when we are boggled in the authenticity of news, we use various channels to verify the news and later air the news.

We at times hint the erring media men to abide by the code of conduct.

Media is a vocation wherein one should try to limit oneself being guided more by one's duties rather than by the articles of the code of conduct.

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