AMF Releases 'Asia Media Report 2009' in Mumbai
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Prominent senior journalist and editor of the Mumbai daily 'Loksatta' Kumar Ketkar was on hand to release the report. The report, launched at the Asia Media Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, in March, will be released in different countries in Asia and the Mumbai event was the first of such events. In his speech, Ketkar held his fellow journalists accountable for not reporting the real issues facing the population. The media are no more a mirror of the society and no one else but journalists are responsible for this, he said. Quoting some of the recent incidences in Mumbai, Ketkar said that neither management nor advertisers ask journalists to write on pertinent issues. "We journalists are lacking in understanding of the issues due to our inadequacies. The people in Mumbai got the real picture of Dharavi, the biggest slum area in Asia, only after it was shown in the Oscar-winning film 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Till then, media persons in Mumbai had never explored the area and put it before the readers in [a] real sense," he said. Senior journalist and former resident editor of 'The Times of India (Mumbai)' Darryl D'Monte, who has edited the AMF report, informed the gathering about how the development of the concept and publication of the report. Senior journalist Kalpana Sharma, who contributed the India chapter of the book, also addressed the guests. Sanjay Ranade, head of the department of Master of Journalism in Mumbai University, gave the welcome address while AMF coordinator Milind Kokje proposed the vote of thanks. |
The 'Asia Media Report 2009: Missing in the Media', produced by the Asia Media Forum (AMF), was released at a function jointly organised by the AMF and The Press Club, Mumbai (India) at the club's conference hall on May 7. 
Aung Htun (not his real name) is one of the young video journalists featured in the award-winning feature documentary 'Burma VJ (Reporting from a Closed Country)'. 
