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 Prime Minister 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-democractic 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 Censor (a senior officer of Information Directorate) was censoring SCP’s news 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 has 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 the following:
Orissa’s most incisive online sentinel:
orissamatters.comSubhas Chandra Pattanayak’s personal and family contributions to Oriya literature:
saubhasya.com Most eagerly and massively visited site on Orissa’s cinema scenario:
orissacinema.com Two upcoming websites --
Orissasahitya.com and
Orissatribals.com
