Thiruvananthapuram: A group of women journalists staged a demonstration in front of the Mangalam TV office here on Friday protesting against the use of a woman scribe to trap former transport minister A.K. Saseendran. Despite the motor vehicle strike on Friday, women journalists led by Network of Women in Media went ahead with the protest here and in Kozhikode. The protest in Kochi will be held on Saturday. K.K. Shida, who led the demonstration in Kozhikode, said, “what their channel head said on Thursday night cannot be considered as an apology. Now he is trying to shift the responsibility to the woman journalist,” she added.
Women journalists have had to face denigrating comments from various quarters after the Mangalam ‘expose,’ according to Geetha Nazeer, state convenor, NWMI. “Mangalam TV has insulted women journalists,” she said. A former Mangalam journalist, Gita Bakshi, said, “this was not the kind of work we did back then. Even during times when the paper was under severe financial strain, we never stooped this way. There were even attempts to lure the paper during controversial cases. But we never compromised on work ethics,” she said.
Resignation spree at TV channel
The Mangalam Television is faced with a resignation spree after it landed in trouble for airing the controversial audio tape. Mr M.M Ragesh, deputy news editor at Kozhikode bureau, resigned and launched a scathing attack on it through his Facebook post. Mr Ragesh revealed that he had asked his seniors whether they had practised yellow journalism, but was told that it was stark truth. “I was assured that truth was being exposed. But now the real truth has been revealed,” he said. Mr Ragesh recalled that the television had asked the journalists to get news at any cost during their training.
