Jyoti Yadav, Senior Reporter with The Print on Tuesday said that Covid-19 impacted people from all walks of life, and journalists were no exception.
However, a motivating email from Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of The Print changed her attitude completely and she set out for her tour to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to highlight the problems being faced during the pandemic.
Addressing students of journalism at SGT University during a guest lecture on “Reporting from Ground Zero during Covid-19” organized by the Faculty of Mass Communication and Media Technology, Yadav said that reporting from remote villages was tough, but it was satisfying too because she was able to highlight people’s issues.
“When the lockdown was imposed and people isolated themselves in their homes, Shekhar Gupta wrote an email to all his reporters saying that this pandemic can be dangerous and some of us might not remain alive to see when it ends. However, we must not forget our commitment made to common people that we have an obligation to highlight their woes. When the pandemic ends, the coming generations will ask you what you were doing when Covid-19 was consuming lives. At that time, we should be able to tell them that we were right in the middle of suffering humanity highlighting their miseries through the media.” Jyoti said adding that this email changed her attitude and she never looked back after that.
Winner of Ram Nath Goenka Award, Red Ink Award, UNPF Laadli Award twice and PII-ICRC Award once, Yadav comes from a rural background – she was born in a below poverty line (BPL) family in Mahendragarh district of Haryana.
She urged students coming from rural areas to not consider their background a handicap, as her upbringing in fact helped her a lot in digging out stories from the remote villages.
Earlier, Prof Sushil Manav, Dean, Mass Communication and Media Technology, welcomed Jyoti Yadav to the university.
“For the past three months, I was trying to invite Jyoti Yadav for this lecture but was not getting success, as she was always on tour for reporting. I wanted her to be among our students, because she, like our own students, comes from a rural background,” he added.
Thanking Jyoti Yadav for her lecture, Shashi Kumar Pandey, Associate Professor, said he had read many of her stories and found her a bold and fearless journalist.
Kranti Anand, Biswambhar Bose, Saleem Javed, Asif Hussain, Tejee Isha, Tushar Gulia, Madhav Sharma, and Abhishek Dubey, all Assistant Professors in the Faculty, Sonia, Public Relations Officer of the University and students of the Journalism and Mass Communication and the Centre of Languages and Communication attended the lecture.
