Opening Remarks by Former Deputy Prime Minister and Chairperson of Girija Prasad Koirala Foundation Hon. Sujata Koirala in the International Virtual conference (Concepts & Concerns of South Asian Journalists-Post Covid 19) on sept 6

It’s my pleasure to join this program entitled ‘Concepts & Concerns of South Asian Journalists-Post Covid 19’.
I would like to extend cordial greetings and warm welcome to all the distinguished guests and participants.
Journalism has crucial role to transform the society as it informs and educates the people in different aspects and it  can act as watchdogs for the formulation of public policy and highlighting the blocks to development such as corruption, human rights abuses and inefficient of the governance. Therefore journalism, journalists and media are acting as bridge between government and society.
Media are most important means of communication during this pandemic situation as they inform and aware the people. Media has the power to calm the people, as well as chaos the people for positive and negative actions respectively.
The pattern of journalism has also been changed during these days. Previously we were depending only on print media, radio and television but at this digital age we cannot run away from advanced and smarter technologies. Digital Journalism, which is very convenient and bring changes to people’s behavior in new world of post covid-19 too. Also the Artificial Intelligence is becoming an important tool to Journalism’s future. It is very easy for journalists for facts checking before they publish their news, views or interviews. The web browser makes easy access for journalists to get and give information ethically and correctly, the content of the news itself should be appealing and maintaining the professionalism to the eye of the viewers and readers.
But in the developing countries still there is lack of professionalism and ethics. Few corporate media houses and journalists are being used in different missions. On other hand digital media are losing their reliability because of publishing the fake news. Although I am not a journalist but a victim of yellow journalism.
I think the growing digitization of journalism which brings unprecedented benefits as well as safety risk and credibility. Digital security threats like (spoofing), malware and cyber  (spying) have grown and evolved in recent years. Journalists and media house are the source of information and data. Therefore the protection of data in this digital era journalism is more challenging job. Only the high level of ethics and efforts can save these all.
Additionally, journalists are also facing number of challenges and exploitation from owner in south Asian countries. I heard that so many journalist are still working on low pay and top media houses also do not pay salary timely and forced to leave the job. It is going to worst during this pandemic hence I strongly argued to provide the facilities for the journalists. I firmly believe that we shall enable to resolve the problems arising in journalism with combined effort of all concerns.
Thank you so much all of you and I wish for the grand success of this program.
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