Are editors maintaining ethics?

Once there was an editor in a Nepal who was writing about virtues of democracy in Nepal. It seemed he had the remedy for every trick of Gyanendra. He appeared selfless in his edits, and was lecturing Gyanendra like a professor to his students. I was completely convinced with him until democracy was restored in Nepal. After Gyanendra’s defeat, he was elated and started behaving as if he was also above the laws. One day, I happened to read his e-mail to an accused of harassing a dalit employee to death. In his mail, he traded his influence as editor for an admission in some college. His mail got scattered in cyberspace; so did my respect for him and his ideas.

I realized that he was merely a charlatan that knows what others should do, but did not bother to realize his own immoral actions. This tendency of skillfully hiding one's own wickedness and liberally pointing out others' foibles, as exhibited by this editor has all of us on tenterhooks. In the process of civilization, we have learnt to read newspapers and believe in what editors write, but never bothered to ask ourselves level of honesty and integrity these editors maintain.

The abuse of influence discipline could be a perfect example. In the western countries, editors never use their position to trade publications with admission.. There is no moral ground to exercise self-aggrandizement of the editors. Here, however, every editor talks of long queue and pressure of articles and that means: "Watch out! I'm not delaying; you have to favor me to get favor from my side.” All the while, favor seekers, too, assert their positions and talk of long queue for admission in their campuses/universities/schools. In Nepal, if you try to enroll your not-so-bright wards, everybody connects and networks with their peers, colleagues and superiors, as they are worried about losing their admission. Very few editors have the sense to stop such practices and care for morality in our day-to-day lives.

The most glaring example that portrays our society's character is seen in the "secret dealings" of our editors. In order to pressurize the concerned party to fulfill one group's demands, we do not hesitate to kick on the beliefs of the millions of Nepalis who take their daily dosages of moral lessons from editorials. Moreover, in moral terms too, one editor's forsaking his conscience costs the publication valuable readers, not to talk about its long-term impacts on our societal credibility, and crusade against corruption, connection, networking and mafia raj.

This special supplement of the ChangeinKU being published after exposure of Mr. Praeek Pradhan,Editor of TKP, is not planned quite optimistically nor with a design. About six months ago, when we were bereaving martyrdom of our Buddhi Bahadur Bishwokarma, we were convinced that the justice would be brought to perpetrators of harassment-triggered suicide of an employee through sustained discussion in Media. We were eager to discuss openly to inform all and sundry how life-threatening has become academia in KU; so many of our contributors, supporters and friends decided to write to the editors, publish their write-ups and articles. And this is to help Nepali intelligentsia in taking right decisions vis-à-vis nepotism, corruption and use of brutal force of Suresh Raj Sharma.

However, the unfolding of the events in the last six months alone has been disheartening. The initial euphoria after the successful KU Movement was manipulated and forced to taper off. In the last one-week, many have asked a question to me, and I'm also asking myself: Are editors like Prateek Pradhan maintaining morality and journalistic values?