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Yuvraj Ghimire, the former editor-in-chief of Kantipur Daily and The Kathmandu Post, has said that the mass media should make the leadership accountable in a democracy.
Speaking at the session on 'Kalam and Shakti: Nepali Democracy and Journalism' under Kantipur Conclave-2024 organized by Kantipur Media Group in Kathmandu, he said that leadership should be accountable in democracy.
He said that the media is not an opponent of the government and the state. 'Media is not anti-state'. We are not anti-government either . We cooperate with the government," he said. "Our responsibility is that the media is a permanent opponent of the government. The media always tries to make the government accountable.'
He also recalled that the then royal government detained the president of Kantipur Media Group Kailash Sirohia and the editor of Kantipur for publishing the article of former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai during the Darbar massacre.
'Darbar returned from abroad immediately after the murder. At that time, Baburam Bhattarai's article was coming. We had to look at three/four things . We did not agree with everything that was written," he said, "but being an editor and the duty of an organization was to place the official opinion of a strong movement on a tragic event that happened in the history of the country. But it was a challenge. The next day, the police officers asked us to bring respect and we were prosecuted for treason.
He said that Bhattarai's article was given a place because the mass media should give place to what happened in the movement at that time.
As a demonstration against the royal regime, if the editors of the media are not satisfied, he also says that steps have been taken to leave blank space in the news.
I was not in Kantipur when the army was sent during the king's reign. We used to run Samya magazine," he said. "When the editor friends sat down and discussed, we said that we would keep a blank space. What I did was to censor one or two spaces where I didn't like it. That was as a protest.'
He said that he should not stop writing even though there are criticisms and pressures about writing news. At that time, apart from being connected to the party, there was a magazine at the national level," he said. "We kept writing critical news. It's not that we haven't been threatened. But we defended it .'
