Bhubaneswar 3rd May 2017 (OdishaLIVE Bureau): A two day National Media Conclave took off at KIIT Convention Center, Bhubaneswar today involving media practitioners, academia, policy makers, bureaucrats, researchers and students. Organised by Institute of Media Studies (IMS) with OdishaLIVE as knowledge partner the conclave aims to commemorate with World Press Freedom Day, observed internationally. The conclave is slated to discuss the boom of traditional and new media impacting today’s society with the theme ‘Media and Social Responsibility’.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Prof. B P Sanjay, Pro Vice Chancellor, University of Hyderabad and the chief guest pointed that “In recent time media persons are more focused on small or big political developments, which are not always useful for the democracy instead of the people’s voice. The social media came with the promise of unearthing the truth but have lately become a territorial viewpoint sharing platform and hence hindering harmony”. “These limitations and new age mindset of media professionals must be changed towards a more responsive and faithful reporting mechanism, which will largely contribute to the society” he added.
The inaugural session was also graced by Ms. Sevanti Ninan, Editor, The Hoot, Santosh Bhartiya, noted Journalist, R. N. Dash, Secretary, KIIT & KISS, Prof. Upendra Padhi, Convenor of the conclave and Director, Institute of Media Studies (IMS), Nilambar Rath, Co-convenor of the conclave and Founder Editor & CEO, OdishaLIVE and Dr. Gayatri Patnaik, Senior Faculty, IMS.
Sevanti Ninan, Editor, The Hoot and the theme speaker of the session shared about the alarming number of journalist attacks in India while criticizing the persons behind it for hindering investigative journalism. She also mentioned about the need of our media to be free or at throwaway prices thus hindering the quality of content that comes out.
“Though the times have changed and media PR is on the rise, I hope Bhubaneswar would provide us with honest journalists” said Santosh Bhartiya, an eminent journalist and Guest of Honour at the function.
The Inaugural ceremony witnessed the release of the Abstract, the conclave Souvenir and the Proceedings. The web portal www.odisha.live was also launched by OdishaLIVE. The session went live through the portal along with www.youtube/odishalive for the global audience to take glimpses of the conclave.
The purpose of the conclave is to deliberate on issues as to redefine the media’s social responsibility, to address the issues relating to the boom of global mass media and its after effects, to find out ways in strengthening the freedom of press and to bring media professionals and policy makers together to discuss explosion of media in the country.
