JFA insists on mass COVID-19 screening for media employees

Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) expressed serious concern regarding increasing number of city-based media employees infected with novel corona virus recently. JFA urges all media houses to go for mass Covid-19 screening for their staffs as well as the working journalists.

Days back, a printer-publisher of Hindi newspaper Nishpaksha Samachar Jyoti tested positive for Covid-19. City-based Prahlad Kumar Agarwal thus became the first corona virus infected media person of the State. Unconfirmed reports claim that around ten media employees working in the city lately tested positive for Covid-19.

“We are now worried as our health minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma himself stated in public comment that journalists of two news channels tested positive for Covid-19,” said a statement issued by JFA president Rupam Barua and secretary Nava Thakuria.

The forum also appeals to the State health minister to facilitate all media houses to organize mass screening camps for their valued employees at the earliest. After all, the media persons are playing the role Covid-19 warriors with discriminating necessary information in the time of a pandemic, it concluded.

Nava Thakuria is a Guwahati (North East India) based journalist, who contributes to News Hour and various other media outlets. He writes over various socio-political and environmental issues of North East India along with Bangladesh, Burma, Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal. One of his areas of interest is also the media and its development.
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