An underground organization asked our office to entertain its press release in the front page. That press release did not merit for front paging. So, we tucked it inside. Few days later, another outfit gave us a press release. By publishing such an item would be akin to making our newspaper a notice board so we dropped the press note though we were aware of the repercussion (these are routine happenings). A day later, a strong directive from the Headquarters of the Inspector General of Assam Rifles (North) came to our office which read: “It is reiterated that no article which projects the demands of NSCN (K) and gives it publicity is a violation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, and should noat be published by your newspaper.”
The authentication issue: Time—one cold December evening—the whole Christmas mood was hijacked just by a visit of three unknown individuals to our office. They claimed to be from one of the underground organizations. They requested us to get their press release announced in our newspaper. We declined to accept their matter. The sole reason for our decision wasn’t that it was a serious allegation against another outfit—but that it was a handwritten note on a normal sheet of paper. We requested these supposed underground cadres to return with their official letter head containing at least a telephone number. One among them was conveying our stand to their leader. After a while the person gave me his phone saying that the leader wanted to speak to me. “Heelo (Hello) Auditoor (editor)!…” The underground leader asked me whether letter heads were issued by Osama Bin Laden before the 9/11 incident. He further inquired if any letter head was issued for the Assam flood media coverage. My answer was, “Yes”.
Another similar case: A man said to be incharge of the publicity affairs of his outfit (not in ceasefire) telephoned our office to furnish press statements. We clearly told him that we would not be able to entertain his statements because it lacked authentication. He asked me what the criteria was for press notes to be published in the newspaper. He was told that one of the norms or factors required was a letter head containing a contact number. Three days later this man phoned again asking the location of our office. He sounded tense and uptight. He was in hurry. He walked into my room and gave me a bag weighing about 2 kilograms. The bag contained about 30 books of their letter head. He told us that since they were always on the run we should keep those letter head books so that we could print their statements every time they wanted to issue press notes. I protested and ……
At a function: At a function, few media persons were seen seated in the front row of the hall. The moderator of the programme expressing gratitude to the journalists said, “We are very happy for these“Press Releases” (he meant journalists) who took trouble to come this far to attend our function.”
Chief guest in a programme: “Without the media our society is ruined. Media is the four states (fourth estate) of democracy.”
One of the organisers requested, “Please wait for another half-an-hour. The…reporter is on the way. Once he reaches we will start our press briefing (we walked out).” The next day only the newspaper whose reporter was late carried the news of the programme—the best reward for concentrating on one particular daily.
