Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, March 28: The countdown has begun. Come April 1, Orissa POST will complete its fourth year of publication. To make the run-up to the fifth year of existence exciting, the paper held a get together of opinion leaders – some by their own right and some who grew with the daily to find a place among the opinion moulders of the state – as the paper had gone on disseminating news without fear or favour, in keeping with its tag line – “Here. Now”, and promises to be the voice of Orissa in the days ahead.
“There were English dailies with national presence here. But we felt the whole of Orissa was not getting a fair deal. Districts like Bhadrak and those in the Kalahandi Balangir Koraput Region, as well some other districts like Dhenkanal, Keonjhar and Angul are not properly represented in those newspapers. Hence there was a ‘slot’ and Orissa POSTcame into being to cater to the people of the state,” said Adyasha Satpathy, chief executive of Orissa POST. “The journey has been very short, but at the same time it has been a very long journey for us,” she told the 30 odd writers who had gathered at the Press Club to share their experiences and provide inputs to make the daily even better.
The journey has been, till date, an enriching experience not only for the writers, who participated in the discussion, but also for the journalists of the newspaper. It was evident in what the Editor of the Orissa POST Tathagata Satpathy, MP, had to say. “OP is growing with all your love and goodwill,” he told the writers present. “OP is now printed from four locations. Its circulation is growing. We are successfully overcoming the stage where growth in circulation brings in losses. Advertisers today have gained confidence in OP and are sure that their message would reach the desired target audience,” he said.
Writers like prof Hrudaya Ballav Das, Santosh Kumar Mohapatra, Amarendra Das, Sanjoy Kumar Satpathy and Sudha Devi Nayak shared their experiences while praising the type of journalism that OP preaches and which in turn has been improved by the contributing writers. Writer Bikas Choudhury, who has grown with the paper said, “ I am a socio-economic-political activist. My first column was published in this paper some three, four years ago. There had been other regional English newspapers before, but those did not survive. Orissa POST however, is destined to survive. The positioning of the paper is really good.”
All the eminent writers present gave their input to make the paper better. “The day we complete four years coincides with Utkal Diwas,” said the CEO and went on to pledge to make the paper “more competitive” by incorporating the ‘changes’ suggested by the opinion leaders.
