Covid impacts media badly, devastating journos

The List: Media Bloodbath in Covid Times', a short movie in Hindi, brings into focus the ruthless retrenchment drive in the Indian Media under cover of the Covid crisis. It is known to everyone how did the media industry get affected due to Covid-19 and the pink slips the media persons were handed over. This aspect has been rightly portrayed in 'The List: Media Bloodbath in Covid Times', a short movie in Hindi, which was released on May 03 which brings into focus the ruthless retrenchment drive in the Indian Media under cover of the Covid-19 crisis. Covid-19 had its impact on media in several ways. Immediately after the first lockdown was announced in March 2020, there were shutdowns, hefty pay-cuts and retrenchment across the print, electronic and digital media. Hundreds of journalists lost their jobs within first two months of the lock down.

"Though the pandemic had devastating impact on economy as a whole, what sets apart media was that the issue of job losses in mainstream media was not covered at all. This is the reason, we focused on this issue in the movie," the film's director Mahesh Rajput told Bizz Buzz. "We believe that the freedom of Press has a direct link to the job security of media persons. Of late, the contractualization and casualization of work in media has impacted the Press freedom and quality of journalism. Also, during the first phase of pandemic, media men were struggling to save their livelihood but this year they had to struggle to save their lives as they had contracted virus in the line of duty. This movie salutes the struggle of media persons during the pandemic," he added.

At per the story of the film, the Editor-in-Chief of "The Whistle Blower" calls up Manish, the Resident Editor of the publication's Chandigarh edition, and asks him to prepare a list of 15 employees for sacking in the name of rationalising expenditure. Manish is trapped in a moral dilemma: should he preside over a bloodbath of his colleagues or should he jeopardise his own job? Right now, Rajput goes on, there are none. Totally focused on this movie. Right now, I am in process of sending this movie in festivals and competitions so that we can reach to the larger audience.

Mahesh Rajput, the director of the film, a working journalist, made his first short movie 'Fake It Easy!', a satire on a political party's online meeting to handle a fake news, last year during the Covid-19 lockdown. It won the best film award in experimental category of 1st Sudarshan Gaur online short film competition organised by All India Artists Association, Shimla.