GUWAHATI, Jan 27 - As part of the two-day diamond jubilee celebrations of the Assam Tribune Employees� Union (ATEU), correspondents of the Assam Tribune Group of Publications today had an interactive session on the Tribune campus.
Prior to the interaction, all the correspondents and newspaper agents, hawkers and distributors present were felicitated with a memento each.
During the interaction, the correspondents reiterated their commitment to uphold the enduring legacy of truthful and responsible journalism of the Assam Tribune Group of Publications. Various issues faced by the correspondents such as lack of space for accommodation of their news reports, late publication of news, need for orientation programmes for correspondents, better incentives for the correspondents, etc., also came up.
PJ Baruah, Executive Editor of The Assam Tribune, while acknowledging the grievances of the correspondents, assured that the establishment is thinking of increasing the number of pages for better accommodation of the news of the correspondents.
�We understand that correspondents work under a lot of constraints and they deserve better accommodation in terms of publication of their reports. But space constraint often prevents us from doing justice to their efforts. However, we are planning to add more pages for ensuring enhanced accommodation of their reports,� he said.
Munin Bayan, Executive Editor of Assamese daily Dainik Asam, also said that pages in the newspaper would be increased to address the correspondents� grievances. He also said that with the newspaper industry at a crossroads now, all the stakeholders in the industry, especially the journalists, need to have a rethink on the strategy to be adopted for sustaining it.
Dilip Chandan, Editor of the weekly Asam Bani, stressed the need for innovation in the manner of news gathering and presentation for attracting young readers to newspapers. �New challenges are emerging for the newspaper industry in recent times and how we tackle those will have a bearing on the survival of the industry,� he said.
Ankur Deka, Assistant Editor of the monthly literary magazine Gariyoshi published by the Tribune Group, also addressed the meeting.
A cultural progamme followed in the evening which featured among others veteran artistes Sudakshina Sarma and Rishiraj Sarma.
