TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Congress party has filed a complaint against Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to Press Council of India (PCI) seeking action against him for his ‘abusive and derogatory’ remarks against the Goa media during a public event this Sunday.
In his complaint posted on Wednesday, Congress Secretary Sunil Kawthankar has sought stringent action against the CM as a deterrent to all those threatening journalists.
“This act of the CM is a verbal assault on the integrity of the press reporters, which indirectly is a threat to those who report the correct happenings in the interest of the public, thereby attempting to restrain the flow of news to the public. It is therefore prayed that stringent action may be initiated against the respondent to uphold the freedom of press in the State of Goa and to serve as a deterrent to all those threatening journalists doing their lawful duty causing infringement of freedom of press,” Kawthankar wrote.
The complaint letter cites Parrikar’s remark on February 23 in which he criticized the media for biased news coverage and alleged involvement in paid news.
“He criticized media for biased news coverage and alleged that many news journalists were doing Opposition sponsored paid news reporting, questioning the journalist’s education, at a public function. He said “what is reporter’s salary…how much does a news reader earn? May be 25000 (rupees). They are mostly graduates, they are not great thinkers, intellectuals they write news how they understand it”… “There is prevalence of paid news in Goa where people take money to write.” Taking a jibe apparently at Congress, the Chief Minister said “we all know which political party runs the paper. We also know which paper has what political inclination”… “You all should have sense, you should know how powerful the person is before reporting his comments,” Kawthankar mentioned.
