Excellence and courage

First, a salute to the 16 winners of the Ramnath Goenka Awards for Excellence in Journalism. If these men and women had not enriched Indian journalism through their outstanding stories of visible and invisible India, powered and disempowered India, we would not have had the occasion to recognise and celebrate their work. Awards of this kind, after all, are national recognition of a private endeavour that has public significance. Which is why to select the awardees we constituted a jury composed of men and women of impeccable professional credentials and great achievers in their respective fields. The man in whose name these awards were instituted was a true believer in the journalistic endeavour. Ramnath Goenka instinctively recognised the power of the press. He used this power with telling efficacy in times of great turmoil and change; when freedoms were at stake, whether from the British Raj or the Emergency regime. And he used this power with great courage. Living up to this legacy is challenge now, not just for the Indian Express as an institution, but to Indian journalism. We hope these awards set new standards. We hope they become benchmarks for truly outstanding work in a sphere that is central to the functioning of Indian democracy.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recognised the connection between the journalism of courage and the democratic agenda in his address at the awards ceremony. We carry his speech alongside. When a head of government applauds a free and vibrant media and argues that their freedom needs to be defended, their vibrancy extended 8212; it speaks of enlightened leadership. But a functioning democracy is a complex phenomenon, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was only recognising this when he suggested that while debate is important, discussion is only more so. Because while debates divide, discussions unify and lead in time to the important consensus needed in any project of nation building.

We agree with the prime minister when he remarked that the 8220;national media has an important role to play in the process of consensus building8221;. And we intend to take his words seriously in our practice of journalism, even as we continue to pursue the journalism of courage. Because, as the prime minister put it, freedom of the press is finally about the freedom of society to have its voice heard.