Newspapers sell stale and commercial news: Bhattacharjee

Distinguished personalities attending the occasion of the release of Digantika in Silchar on Wednesday. (Sentinel)

SILCHAR, Sept 30: “Mediapersons today are losing their credibility due to lack of sincerity in disseminating information. Newspapers sell stale and commercial news which have no social relevance. Readers, in turn, sell the news papers after a few days. It has become a tendency with the journalists to enter the arena of literature without any training or mantel makeup,” said distinguished poet and literateur of Barak Valley Bijit Kumar Bhattacharjee while releasing the autumn issue of the weekly Digantika in a hotel conference hall here recently.

Bhattacharjee added to say that journalists treading into the domain of literature attempt to spice up their articles reportedly with imaginative thoughts and ideas which hardly reflect the man and society around. Quoting from the great novelist Sharat Chandra, he pointed out, a writer has to know what to write and what not to. A journalist writes, he further said, for his self-satisfaction. It is easy to produce a journalist or a musician or a painter but not a literateur, he stated. News can never be literature.

Editor of Digantika Mita Das Purkayastha traced, in brief, the background against which the weekly started its publication to serve the interest of both mediapersons and readers of literary taste. The autumn issue is replete and enriched with, as she said, contributions from eminent writers and mediapersons of Barak Valley.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Dr Subir Kar, Prasun Kanti Deb, Hirendra Kumar Gupta, Haran Dey, Deputy Director of Information and Public Relations, Chabi Gupta, Sanat Kumar Koiri, Imran Hussain Choudhury and Khairun Nessa Choudhury. On behalf of Digantika publication, clothes were distributed among the poor and needy children of the NGO Jyoti Kendra. THE SENTINEL