Development Communication Still in its Phase of Development

The main speaker of the talk program entitled “ Development Journalism: Necessity and Challenges”, Laxman Dutta Pant, gave his very comprehensive analysis of the present situation of the development journalism in Nepal. He further discussed the importance and the role of development journalism not only in the development of infrastructures but also in the need of active participation of the Nepalese diaspora to bring paradigm shift in the concept towards development.
Pant also criticized the general trend of journalist to devote a couple of paragraphs to the speech of political leaders in their newspaper rather than giving their detailed follow up in the development news story. He also grabbed the attention of various media scholars present in the talk program about the critical state of Nepalese media houses which are highly business oriented rather than service. He gave various instances of abroad countries like Scandinavian countries where development journalism not only focuses on the infrastructure building but also the agendas that brings people together to interact and find the solution to their problems by themselves. According to him, development journalism plays leading role in eradicating poverty and promoting human development. He said, “In the context of our country conflict, natural disaster, and government recklessness are the three main factors that is hindering the development journalism to play its role in eradicating poverty”.
During his replies to the curiosities presented by the students and the scholars present at the one hour long talk program Pant pointed out the lack of uniform distribution of the various media outlets across the country, the main obstacle in the way to develop Nepalese media as a full fledged industry. Assistant Professor Nirmala Mani Adhikary, research expert and the author of more than two dozens of books, also assisted Pant during the question answer session. Pant is also a visiting faculty at Kathmandu University.
In his article “Redefining Development Communication” Pant firstly emphasis Nepalese people to advance in the area of communication for their social advancement. Until there is no proper communication then they would not be able to understand their problem and even find the solution to it. Development communication is not just giving the news of advancement regarding the infrastructure of the country but it should focus in the activity and its impact on the people. As development journalist increase in number, so do statistics on poverty, corruption, illiteracy, disease etc. This creates the confusion between “development journalism” and “development communication”. Development journalism should focus on the needs of the poor, the deprived, the marginalized and emphasis their effective participation in development planning.