What links me to Indian Newslink INL) is its Founder-Publisher and Managing Director Ravin Lal. Both of us, some say, are imposition, other say, gift, on the New Zealand media from Fiji’s Daily Post where Lal has been a former Sales and Marketing Manager and I was its former general manager and publisher.
INL had been lucky to be an ethnic media, which later developed as a side-stream media in New Zealand’s relatively free press environment.
The growth of INL can be attributed to Mr Lal, who started very small some 4000 days ago. That makes it 11 years old this month. Congratulations to him and his small but dedicated team of individuals in empowering a small paper into a local giant.
As a media student, I am aware of the lack of diversity and balance in the mainstream media about the ethnic minorities, and this shortcoming saw the growth of ethnic media around Auckland.
Just the other week, I raised my concern about this in a blog article, titled White Media, Brown Aotearoa (New Zealand).
A Refreshing Oasis
The growth and popularity of INL over the years can, among other reasons, be attributed to this factor. The Indian community saw this paper as an oasis in the desert of mainstream media, which only noticed them when somebody got killed, raped or conned, for the negative portrayal only.
That is where INL stepped in, not only to bring the community nearer to their respective home countries, but also told that other positive side of the community stories and news ignored by the mainstream. This role of developmental journalism gave the added impetus for the growth of INL.
Over the years, INL strived to tell what others failed to do. One shortcoming evident was that despite telling the positive side of the community, on occasions it dwelt a great deal with front and page three stories screaming about the criminal and anti-social activities of the community while pushing the positive stories to the back and inside pages.
Those critical of the mainstream media were silenced by such a stance of their own paper.
Understate pitfalls
The future direction of the newspaper should be to report the achievements of the communities and not sensationalise its weaknesses- that is the duty of the mainstream media! That does not mean it should be blind to the criminal and unethical activities of the community.
All we ask is that INL should be a bit more sensitive to such issues, lest it stereotypes our community wrongly, just like the mainstream media portrays us.
The other direction is encouraging thought-provoking feature articles of over 1000 words that would make INL stand as a newspaper and not a mere magazine with snippet articles.
The community is now more educated, desires and deserves more serious value reading in English language meant for better communication and easier comprehension.
In light of the added competition, INL has to be wary of its readers’ views and needs to focus and position itself as a newspaper that belongs to the community, empathise with it and hence consolidate its rightful position as a community newspaper.
Happy Birthday Indian Newslink and happy long life.
Thakur Ranjit Singh is our Columnist and a free thinker, forthright in his thoughts.
Email: thakurji@xtra.co.nz
