Shimla, Nov 16 (IANS): Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Friday said the digital media has posed a big challenge to the print media.
"The social media in particular should work with greater responsibility and professional ethics. At times, it has been felt the social media, in a bid to catch the deadline, disseminates news without verifying facts," he said at the state-level function on National Press Day here.
He said the journalists working in the web media must ensure that whatever they report must be based on facts.
The function was organised by the state Information and Public Relations Department on the theme "Journalism Ethics and Challenges in Digital Era".
Thakur highlighted the need for journalists to give more importance to developmental reporting so that the welfare programmes of the government could reach the common people.
They should also highlight the issues relating to the common masses on priority so that appropriate action could be taken by the government, he said.
The Chief Minister said journalism was rightly called the fourth pillar of democracy as it was playing a major role in upholding democracy.
He said there was not even a single field which was devoid of challenges and journalism was not an exception. In the recent years, working as a media professional has become very challenging.
"Extreme work pressure, time constraint, the competition to survive, culture of paid news and advertorials adopted by the media houses for their survival have caused a huge pressure on the media as a whole," he added.
Thakur said in this era of communication, everyone is a communicator or a news provider. This has made the role of the working journalist far more complicated and challenging.
"Himachal Pradesh is fortunate to have a highly professional media. The journalists must ensure that whatever they publish or broadcast is factual so that they maintain credibility amongst the masses," he said.
The journalists must function freely, fearlessly and without any bias so that they did not lose credibility with readers and viewers, he added.