Award to the ‘Sober, incisive, informed’, Journalist Ravish Kumar wins Ramon Magsaysay Award 2019

Lalit Kumar Singh, GR News Desk,
New Delhi.
NDTV Journalist Ravish Kumar has been awarded Asia’s Nobel, Ramon Magsaysay Award 2019. Ramon Magsaysay foundation said that the award was honored for “harnessing journalism to give voice to voiceless”. Ravish is Senior Executive Editor in NDTV India and the most influential voice from Indian media. For his fearless Journalism Kumar had been harassed and threatened by “rabid partisans” because he does not hesistate in calling the highest official to account or criticizing the media and the state of public discourse in India.

He hosts NDTV India’s Prime Time show in which he covers the uncovered issues and the issues which actually have some weight in them. He covers the topics apart from the divisive journalism which is on trend these days.

Magsaysay Award was established in 1957, seeks to reward individual for integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism in democratic societies. Other winners from across the Asia are, Journalist from Myanmar, Ko Swe Win; Human Rights Activist from Thailand, Angkhana Neelapajit; Philippines’ musician Raymundo Pujante Cayabyab and South Korea’s activist working with violence and mental health issues in youth, Kim Jong-Ki. The awards will be presented on September 9^th in Manila.

The board of trutees of the award recognizes Ravish’s “unfalthering commitment to a professional, ethical journalism of the highest standards; his moral courage in standing up for truth, integrity, and independence; and his principled belief that it is in giving full and respectful voice to the voiceless, in speaking truth bravely yet soberly to power, that journalism fulfills its noblest aims to advance democracy” reads the statement on the official website.

The citation
also referred to an episode of Ravish’s Prime Time from 2016, in which he
talked about the situation of media and public discourse on a dark screen. “His more important distinction...comes from the kind
of journalism he represents,” the citation said. “In a media environment
threatened by an interventionist state, toxic with jingoist partisans, trolls
and purveyors of ‘fake news’, and where the competition for market ratings has
put the premium on ‘media personalities’, ‘tabloidization’, and
audience-pandering sensationalism, Ravish has been most vocal on insisting that
the professional values of sober, balanced, fact-based reporting be upheld in
practice.”