EVERY REVOLT BECOMES A REALITY VIZ.THE NEWS SYNDICATE

The News Syndicate owes its origin to the revolt Sri Subhas Chandra

Pattanayak had started in media environment of Orissa against misrule in

the days of Emergency imposed by Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

He was working as the officially accredited staff correspondent of News of

the World (Cuttack) at Bhubaneswar, when Emergency was promulgated

and Press was subjected to censorship. Reporters were asked to submit

their stories to the State Censor for clearance as a prerequisite for

publication.

He had challenged in his own unique way this anti-democracy policy of

suppression of news.

He started submitting reports everyday exposing misrule in every sphere of

governance while editorializing the same to suggest that Emergency was

being used to cover up the misrule. The State Sensor (a senior officer of

Information Directorate) was censoring his reports entirely everyday thereby

debarring the publication thereof. The only English Daily of the State was

thus being denuded of Bhubaneswar datelines.

Though under the Orissa Press Accreditation Rules the Government had

limited purpose control over accreditation, through misinterpretation thereof,

vain attempts were made by the then Director of Information & Public

Relations to browbeat him into cooperating with Emergency. 

“If Emergency and its resultant administrative aberrations were not declared

illegal by the Supreme Court, the Government may continue to command

the Press owners as to what they must refrain from publishing, but it cannot

command a journalist as to what he ought to write”, SCP had maintained.

Having failed to cower him down, the management was used by the

government to withdraw him from Bhubaneswar. He challenged the biased

order of transfer and when his dispute was pending before the Labor law

Authorities, he was dismissed for disobedience of the order of transfer.

That he ultimately won the case and got back his position with promotion

with retrospective effect and full back wages is a different story.

But the lesson he learned made it crystal clear to him that media under the

ownership of business operators is vulnerable to pressure from the

oppressors, as the business operators are basically driven not by

democratic mentality but by profit motive that guides them to side with

power.

In search of a remedy and in search of an avenue to overcome the crisis his

professional life was subjected to by the corrupt people in power, the step

he took blossomed into The News Syndicate.

With the Preamble to “develop a News Organisation which will impart and

promote journalistic services and project them on the media”, The News

Syndicate was finally registered as a Society under the Societies

Registration Act of 1860 on the 27th Day of February, 1980. His family stood

firmly with him in constituting the Society. His father Kanhu Charan

Pattanayak contributed his might as the founder Chairman even as Kanhu

Babu’s brother Nishanath Pattanayak and his four sons joined the positions

of Vice-Chairman and Members respectively. The News Syndicate became

the first News Society of Orissa with a national jurisdiction. With passing

away of the founder Chairman, Prof. Sabitarani Kanungo has been elected

the new Chairperson.  

By virtue of an amendment to its constitution in 2005, it has developed a

new branch styled as ‘Mass Mind’ placing its mass awareness campaigns in

this segment. Former student leader and eminent social worker Ajay Kumar

Mohapatra been placed in its charge.

With media scholar Saswat Pattanayak as Editor General, The News

Syndicate has switched over to Next Generation Journalism. It now owns

and operates Orissa’s most incisive online sentinel, orissamatters.com,

saubhasya.com that carries Subhas Chandra Pattanayak’s personal and

family contributions to Oriya literature, the most eagerly and massively

visited site on Orissa’s cinema scenario orissacinema.com and two

upcoming sites -- orissasahitya, orissatribals.