Kathua, Jan 17: Press Information Bureau’s Additional Director General, Northern Region, Rajinder Chaudhry on Tuesday urged the media to follow Information & Broadcasting Ministry’s various Twitter handles and use PIB Fact Check to counter false information and rumours.
Rumours confuse the public when some false information is viral on different social media platforms, Chaudhry said while addressing a Rural Media Workshop (Vartalap) in Kathua district which was organised by the PIB Jammu, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India.
According to a PIB statement issued here, the workshop was aimed at building a direct interface between PIB Jammu and the journalists working at district and sub-district levels across the Jammu division,
The workshop was inaugurated jointly by Rajinder Chaudhry and Deputy Commissioner, Kathua Rahul Pandey in presence of Ayushi Puri Assistant Director, and Sheikh Mudasir Amin, Media & Communications Officer, PIB, Jammu.
Rajinder Chaudhary on the occasion said, “As this year is being celebrated as International Year of Millets, media has a great responsibility to spread awareness throughout the country regarding daily use of millets, their advantages, value addition, nutritional benefits, recipe development, etc so that mass awareness is generated across India.”
In his inaugural address, DC Kathua appreciated the efforts of PIB Jammu for organising the media workshop which he said is the best platform for a dialogue between media and government. “Media being the fourth pillar of democracy plays a great role in awareness generation as it is only through media that the information reaches the last man in the queue in the remotest corners of an area,” he said.
District Information Officer, Kathua, Neeraj Bhargav said media must follow the ethics while reporting in letter and spirit in order to preserve and promote public trust, and maintain their own credibility. “When the Constitution has Article 19 (1) (a), there are reasonable restrictions also to be followed while reporting,” he said.
District Social Welfare Officer, Kathua, Ab Raheem highlighted various integrated social welfare schemes and emphasised that media must disseminate important information related to government schemes so that the people may benefit.
District Statistical and Evaluation Officer, Kathua, Ranjeet Thakur provided detailed information regarding the completed and ongoing development projects in Kathua. LDM, Kathua, Amul Bhatia stressed upon the media to aware the people of the schemes like PMEGP, PM Suanidhi, StartUp India, JJBY, APY, etc.
Assistant Director, Press Information Bureau, Ayushi Puri in her concluding remarks said, “Besides investigative journalism, the media should focus on development journalism.”
