‘VOPs, not only VIPs should make the news’

The news is for everybody and should be about everybody.

Nepalese journalist and 2002 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Bharat Khoirala said news and information should reach all people – even the residents of the most rural and remote areas of the world.

He also firmly believes that even "very ordinary people (VOPs)" should make the news as much as "very important people (VIPs)."

With this in mind, Khoirala invented the "wall newspaper" in the rural districts of Nepal. Wall newspapers are billboard-style "newspapers" posted on the walls of rural towns that carry news that is relevant to the lives of the residents of the areas where they are posted.

These wall newspapers were so successful, Khoirala said, that some Nepalese towns now print their own newspapers, while others continue to write their news by hand.

Khoirala’s project also received funding from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and administrative support from the Agricultural Development Bank. This funding helped Khoirala put out his wall newspapers in Nepal’s remote districts.

"Good journalism gives attention to what people are doing, positive things that can inspire others," Khoirala told the STAR in an interview. This should be the new definition of journalism, he said, which is different from the western concept of journalism that is practiced the world over.

"Until we are able to inform people living in the villages, until they are able to participate fully in the democratic process, there cannot be democracy or development," Khoirala added.

Over the last 40 years, Khoirala spearheaded the development of journalism in Nepal. This country in the Himalayas was ruled by a hereditary monarchy until the 1950s and its monarchs held Nepal in virtual isolation from the rest of the world.

Educated at the Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Khoirala began his career as a journalist with the government-run Rising Sun newspaper and its sister publication, the Nepali-language Gorakhapatra.

Khoirala eventually became part of the latter’s management where he admittedly gave himself a "heavy dose of self-censorship."

The biography prepared by the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation noted this and said that "even so, (Khoirala) encouraged his young reporters to write good stories and shielded them when the results offended someone in power. And he steered them to cover Nepal’s economic development and its impact on the rural population. True, such stories were safe, but Khoirala understood they were also important."

Khoirala left Gorakhapatra in 1984 and established the Nepal Press Institute (NPI). Through this institute, new and mid-career journalists were introduced to new skills and professional ethics and standards.

Two years later, Khoirala helped form the Nepal Forum for Journalists that encourages in-depth reporting about the country’s environment.

Khoirala said his wall newspapers were inspired by the fact that Nepal has a "listening culture."

Meanwhile, Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service Dr. Ruth Pfau said the battle against leprosy does not end with the eradication of the leprosy bacteria.

According to Pfau, the fight against leprosy will only be won with the complete reintegration of lepers into society.

At a lecture at the Ramon Magsaysay Center on Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City, Pfau said the World Health Organization (WHO) and countries that have leprosy treatment as a public health program should also focus on public education on leprosy. Another point of focus for the WHO and leprosy control programs should be this: working to change the public perception of lepers.

Recalling her life’s work to control and treat leprosy in Pakistan through the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center (MALC) she established in 1960, Pfau said lepers are often met with scorn and hate by people who do not understand the disease.

Leprosy is a bacterial infection of the body that eventually results in the paralysis and mutilation of the patient in the area of infection. Despite the misconception that leprosy is contagious, the disease cannot be transmitted by casual contact such as touching or hugging.