MARGAO: 'Gulab', a Konkani monthly in association with Konkani Bhasha Mandal, Fr Freddy J Da Costa Memorial Trust, 'Felicio Cardoso-che Pattlavdar' and Ravindra Bhavan, Margao held Konkani Journalism day, wherein young journalist Dattu Naik stated that although there is hard work involved, there is less salary in the field of journalism in Goa.
The above function was held at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao on Sunday. Besides Dattu Naik, Prof Harichandra Nagvenkar, freelancer Willy Goes, senior journalist Sanjiv Verenkar, Baban Bhagat, Fausto V Da Costa, and Anant Agni also participated in the discussion, titled 'Why Konkani journalism(print media) is not vibrant?'
"There are fewer opportunities with regard to perceiving the education in journalism in Goa. The youth did not take much interest in making journalism as their career. Besides the new today's youth hardly read anything,” Naik added.
Freelance journalist Willy Goes stated that social media and mobile phones are the few reasons behind journalism is not being vibrant. "Maybe in the future when the youth will become bore of mobiles and thereafter they may turn back to print media,” he added. Speaking on the occasion senior journalist Sanjiv Verenkar questioned that was Konkani journalism ever vibrant?
"Hindu people read Marathi, a Christian community prefers the English. And this has become a tradition of Goans. Nobody was interested in reading the Konkani daily 'Sunaparant'. We have mixed the Konkani movement with journalism and it is a general impression that anything which deals with Konkani daily is only because of the Konkani movement,” he stated.
He further said that it is challenged before us to make the Konkani journalism vibrant. While journalist Baban Bhagat said that till the time we do not love Konkani language it will be difficult to make Konkani journalism vibrant. "Today's readers did not want to read true stories but they prefer to read the news which is related to glamour,” he stated.
Expressing his views, eminent personality of Konkani language Prof Harichandra Nagvenkar said, "It was not only Konkani journalism which was responsible for making Konkani language as an official language of Goa, but journalism done by other languages was also responsible.” In the end, Fausto V Da Costa said that Konkani journalism was vibrant in the earlier days. "And we have achieved many things because of vibrant journalism in olden days. In Mumbai, the Konkani journalism was like a movement", he added.
Later on, an open discussion was held on the above topic in which Hrishikesh Kadam, Tanvi Bambolkar, Anwesha Singbal, Manguesh Borkar, Teotinio D'Costa, and others took part. Hrishikesh and Tanvi put forth some important point such as youth are closer to electronic media compared to print media. They even claimed that print media will have to shut down their print houses in the coming days. But Prof Nagvenkar and Fausto objected to the claim. At the beginning of the function, Secretary of the KBM Nityanand Naik welcomed the gathering. The booklet containing detail information about senior journalist late Joao Lazarus de Souza, Dr Telo de Mascarenhas, Bakibab Borkar and Chandrakant Keni was released. Besides the special issue of 'Goencho Avaz' was also released. Walter Menezes proposed a vote of thanks.