Behind The News: Voices From Goa's Press Copyleft, 2003. May be copied provided entire text is kept intact, and credit is given to all who have contributed to this work. While every attempt has been made to maintain accuracy, we would appreciate inaccuracies being pointed out. Feedback may be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This book was collaboratively written between August 2003 and October 2003, through Goajourno, a cyber network of journalists and former journalists who have worked in Goa. Writers of the respective individual chapters retain their right to be identified as the authors of their work. This is work-in-progress. and currently is in draft stage. Version 0.10 (draft release). First e-version: October 10, 2003 (draft). This e-book can be downloaded from http://www.mediaah.com/Mediaah!DownloadManager.htm or www.goenkar.com The 112-page book (A4 sized) is in PDF format. To read it, you'll need any software that can read PDF files -- like the free-of-cost Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. This e-book was created using Lyx, a free software product that was created by volunteers and which is freely sharable. We say a thank you to those whose work on this and other Free Software makes our work feasible and more practicable today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Birth pangs at Sant Inez Elston Soares ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elston Soares, a veteran of the desk, has worked at the Herald, Newslink and Gomantak Times. Since moving out of Goa, he has worked in publications in the Gulf and Singapore. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- February 15, 1987 marked a watershed in the history of English-language journalism in Goa. That date marked the launch of Goa's fifth English-language daily to be launched in the union territory-turned-state. Fifth, that is, if one includes the now defunct West Coast Times and Newslink, an English-language newspaper launched by the Tarun Bharat Group, and targeted at Goa, though like the Tarun Bharat in Marathi earlier, it too was printed from the neighbouring city of Belgaum. This writer spent two months with Newslink in late 1986 in Belgaum, together with Haseeb Shakoor and Derek Almeida , bringing out the newspaper in very trying and primitive conditions. Strangely, the Tarun Bharat group then thought that they could do another Tarun Bharat with Newslink, that is, to produce a newspaper for the Goa market from Belgaum. But with one significant difference. We did not have the wide correspondent network of Tarun Bharat. We were, instead, expected to translate the stories from Marathi -- something we did rather more successfully in Gomantak Times a few years later. But then, at Belgaum, this was a task easier said than done. And as anyone who has tried translating stories from Goa's Marathi press will testify, most stories contain enormous amount of comment and a large number of them are un-sourced. Our plight could therefore be well imagined. Things I guess have become somewhat better in the last few years; but then it was a nightmare. Trying to fill up six broad-sheet pages with material translated from Tarun Bharat was way too optimistic a goal, to put it mildly. So at best you managed a couple of pages. The rest of the paper was trusty old teleprinter copy, courtesy UNI (United News of India) and PTI (Press Trust of India). And as for our own reporting resources, there was Lionel Messias who slaved all alone in the Panaji office. This couldn't last. So in early December 1986, when the Gomantak Group advertised for staff, I jumped at the opportunity and applied. Besides being a good opportunity to return home from Belgaum -- anyway one used to travel home every week -- the adventure of being there as a newspaper was being born was too good to miss. Not that I was totally unfamiliar with the birth pangs of newspapers -- having joined the Herald as a trainee when it was a few months old and Newslink when it was in a similar position. But, birth pangs or whatever, there's nothing like competition to add a little excitement. It shakes up established players, and all the poaching for staff only pushes up salaries and gives hitherto ignored journalists their day in the sun. I too was offered more money -- more than double my last salary drawn in the Herald -- which I had quit a few months earlier in less than happy circumstances. Meanwhile, just as Gomantak Times was about to be launched, Rajan Narayan in his inimitable style launched a broadside against the to-be-launched newspaper. For days, he wrote about how the Maharashtrawadis were planning take over Goa's English-language media. Never mind that most of the to-be-launched paper's staff were old Herald hands. However, GT -- as the paper was later referred to -- seemed on to making great progress as we neared launch date. For the first time in the history of Goa's English-language media, we had newspaper designers working on what the paper would look like. A two-man team from what was then Bombay was paid a princely sum of Rs 25,000 to come up with the new design. But that was where the good news stopped. The company which had sold the Chowgules the desk-top publishing equipment for the new newspaper had amazingly been able to convince the management that there was no need for paste-up artists. So there we were, trying to put together a newspaper without artists or computer operators or journalists who could do screen-based page layout. There were no dummy runs; in fact, on the night before the first edition, I was forced to call one Herald's former paste-up artists to come in and help produce the paper. Today, all this may sound strange -- given the technological innovations of the last decade -- but then it was crazy, particularly given that the Chowgules had a fully functioning newspaper Gomantak and should have known better. Then to the issue of staff recruitment, and and one of my pet peeves. Goan newspaper managements have always hired journalists from outside the state -- at exorbitant salaries -- believing them to be better than local talent. And so was the case with GT, where my then chief-sub colleague, a sub from the Times of India, was paid twice as much as I was. But just because they are imported, foreign talent isn't always good or suitable for the job at hand. This Bombay veteran was such a miserable creature that on launch night, with editor Mohan Rao shouting his head off, one was forced take charge and ensure that we got the paper to the press. But no mention of this paper's launch can be complete without a mention of the role Gomantak editor Narayan Athawale played. While generally supportive of the idea of the newspaper in the early days, including recommending the hiring of staff whose knowledge of the language was less than adequate, he almost knocked the paper off its feet before it was launched. For this the late Mr Rao was to blame; but it was an innocent mistake. A few days before the launch, Mr Rao asked Mr Athawale to write a piece for the new newspaper -- it remains the only one he ever did. And with good reason. In it, he proceeded to say that the new newspaper would convey the views of the Marathi Gomantak in English. It was a ridiculous claim; but something that the new newspaper took years to live down. This proved to be a real gift to the paper's rivals, which they exploited to good effect. The early days with GT were fun, because most people didn't give us much of a chance. Our staff resources too were meagre. There was Pramod Khandeparker, who was the Assistant Editor but was more of a chief reporter; and a retired English professor M.N. Pal as news editor -- who spent a few months with us -- and G.K. Mohan Nair, the ToI sub. Ex-Herald colleagues included Francis Ribeiro. And among the trainees was my good friend Vidya Heble. But most of the staff were raw and we stumbled along in those early days. The first year passed with GT barely making a dent. I believe that the paper's circulation barely exceeded a few hundred copies. And as the second anniversary approached, Mr Mohan Rao was preparing to say his goodbye. He original brief was to set up the paper and leave after two years. This set the stage for Ashwin Tombat to take charge of the paper. And immediately we began to see a dramatic change in the paper's fortunes. Of course, we were helped along by the Narvekar molestation scandal. But to be fair, it's not the issue that matters, but how you handle it. If we did manage to raise our circulation it was because of our reporting. Some in media, did take exception to the fact that we named the girl. But I feel it was needed then, specially if you have are up against a powerful political figure. For those who still doubt this view, I can only point to the way the Miramar sex scandal died down without the guilty being brought to book. However, one is not suggesting that the victim in sex abuse cases should be named. The only reason I have raised this issue is to explain why the girl was named. Sorry for digressing; but another turning point in the history of paper came in 1993 when we were faced with a contempt notice from the Supreme Court. Sadly, this proved to me that whatever a management tells you, if you get into trouble you face it alone. In the case in question, we were hauled up for what was taken to be a suggestion, in a cartoon, that a Supreme Court judge was being bribed to adjourn a hearing in a case related to the disqualification of then chief minister Ravi Naik. How I got involved in the matter -- even though it was my day off -- is another matter. But the real icing on the cake was that what the court claimed we had suggested in the cartoon apparently was the truth. Unknown to us then, a colleague in our sister newspaper had apparently tried to bribe a judge. But the deal had fallen through. The story came out when the journalist apparently did not return all the money that he was given by politician and claimed he had incurred "expenses". Ravi Naik ultimately resigned, ironically after himself losing an appeal against his disqualification in the Supreme Court; and I was cleared of contempt charges. Two years later I left GT. But the memories remain.... ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
