The Hindu Business Line : Goa in the fine print

Coming from newspersons who have no qualms in calling a spade a spade, there’s enough here for the grapevine to dig out just as there is an attempt to plant experiences for posterity, watering them with personal viewpoints and providing fertile ground for further debate.

Originally published as an e-version in 2003 to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Herald’s English-language edition (formerly O Heraldo in Portugese), the book was circulated in cyberspace through Project Gutenberg, a digital library initiative. The printed version this year aims to take the discussions to “where it mattered” — the reader in Goa.

Many of the essays are critical of several icons of Goan journalism, especially Rajan Narayan who headed Herald for 20 years. But, says Frederick Noronha, who compiled and edited this book, they are to be expected as “there are more journalists dissatisfied with the way the media works”.

What’s a strongpoint for this book, apart from its well written articles, are the everyday details, with journalists describing everything from ‘engineered’ bad blood within departments to political affiliations and why they loved to hate their boss. The excitement of taking first steps into the profession, learning the ropes and the roundup experiences.

Early years

Covering over four decades of post-colonial Goa’s newspaper scene, the book begins with Ben Antao’s account of free Goa’s first polls where he talks about the happenings on the campaign trail and why he had to manipulate news. Though party affiliations of the newspaper he worked for rattled him at first, the love of writing was too strong and so he kept on, he says before concluding that freedom of the press is “all relative, never absolute”!

Elston Soares talks about the birth of Gomantak Times in 1987; it was Goa’s fifth English language daily. There are notes on getting the paper together without artists or computer operators or journalists who could do screen-based page layout despite being the first English newspaper in Goa to take on designers. And, it had no dummy runs! On the night before the first edition, Soares says he actually had to call one of rival paper Herald’s former paste-up artistes to help out.

Some newspapers die, and Valmiki Faleiro details how West Coast Times came to its end, despite having much going for it. That a newspaper cannot survive without infusion of frequent doses of capital was best exemplified at Novem Goem, writes Paul J. Fernandes. Born with a mission to uplift the Konkani language, the paper lived for less than a decade but in its own way served the mass of Konkani lovers, he says.

Konkani press

Two essays talk about Konkani journalism. In ‘How Konkani failed its readers…’, Raju Nayak says the Marathi press has better managed to maintain journalism standards and that the Konkani press failed to create an “intellectual constituency” in the State. Konkani journalism needs to take up issues of its people with a more missionary zeal in order to succeed, he says.

With just two periodicals around, Roman-script Konknni journalism hangs on a cliff, says Peter Raposo in his essay. While readers of Romi Konknni script continue to patronise the papers, the chances of their journalism fading away is also real. “Can we rise to seize this opportunity?” Raposo says.

Competition

Many writers dwell on the ‘phenomenon’ called Rajan Narayan, and how he shaped journalism in this union territory. Frederick Noronha, in his essay ‘Working under Rajan’, describes Narayan as the newspaper equivalent of a patron saint for the average Goan Catholic. He talks about his initial days at the Herald with Rs 300 and the phases of tolerance and intolerance the team went through.

R.K. Nair would take pot-shots at Narayan in his column for The Navhind Times in the 1980s, but credits him with taking it in good humour. He recalls Narayan’s ‘phenomenal output’ — he used to write the lead story, the front-page anchor and the edit, almost every day, six days a week, for several years — and goes on to compare The Navhind Times and Herald in terms of technology and approach to news, and talks about the changes in both these newspapers after The Gomantak Times came in as competitor.

Talking sports journalism is Cyril D’Cunha, who lists football, athletics, swimming and taekwondo as areas that brought honours to Goa while crime reporter Mayabhushan Nagvenkar says it was easy bringing out exclusives as rivals The Navhind Times and The Gomantak Times did not seem to carry “news that scalds”. He has nuggets on tea and pakoras at press meets and the contentious relationship between the press and the police.

Rural reports

Working as a rural correspondent has many complexities and Melvyn S. Misquita explains why. He refers to rural correspondents as ‘waiters’ who have to constantly interact with satisfied/unsatisfied ‘customers’ and news desks that play the role of ‘cooks’ and can make or break a story sent in by them. He also talks about the ‘city-centric syndrome’ where stories from rural correspondents are given less prominent displays, and credits them with talent, reliability, usefulness, sincerity and tenacity.

Finally, it’s ‘Welcome to Goa, ToI’, an open letter to the paper from Frederick Noronha, who says Goa needs a newspaper that’s “relevant to its needs, not one which is just going to kill the competition.” While the Times of India, which entered Goa this year, has resulted in the much-needed salary hikes, will it result in ‘gilded cages’, he asks and goes on to ask whether the paper can promise the ‘dose of professionalism’ that Goan journalism now needs.

In his introduction to the book, Noronha is clear that the offerings here can at best be “fragmentary episodes”, mostly from a generation that grew up in the 1980s, and that more voices need to be heard. But these small servings are high on the ‘individual’ factor, giving readers an opportunity to know the real mind of journalists, and providing a rear-view of the profession in all its shades.

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Goa in the fine print