Nagaland Page, one of Nagaland’s prominent English dailies, has ceased operations after 25 years of publication, announced its founding editor Monalisa Changkija.
Addressing a press conference at her residence in Dimapur on Tuesday, Changkija said the decision to fold the newspaper was fuelled by financial and personal reasons. The veteran journalist noted that the newspaper had never been financially stable from the beginning itself but it was published for over quarter of a century “out of love”.
Launched in May 1999, Nagaland Page was the second English newspaper to be published in Nagaland, Changkija said. The last issue of the tabloid-sized black-and-white daily was published on December 21 last year and Changkija said that the outlet’s online edition would also cease operations as “managing an online platform was even more taxing than print”.
“Mine is not the first paper to fold, nor will it be the last,” Changkija told mediapersons. She added that while she is no longer the newspaper’s editor, she will remain a journalist and a member of the Nagaland’s media fraternity and will continue to write. “The closure of Nagaland Page is an end of an era, but the media here (in Nagaland) will continue to grow from strength to strength and in newer manifestations".
With the launch of Nagaland Page, Changkija had become the first woman to be editor, publisher and proprietor of a daily newspaper in the Northeast. Till it wrapped operations, it was one of the few daily newspapers to be published from Nagaland. In 2015, it was one of the five English and regional newspapers in Nagaland to publish blank editorial space in protest against what they termed as an attempt by Assam Rifles to muzzle press freedom.
Changkija expressed gratitude to her readers, distributors, advertisers, publishers, hawkers and assured assistance to the newspaper’s employees in finding other jobs hoping that other news outlets would absorb them.
Speaking at the 2017 The Media Rumble, Changkija had highlighted issues confronting the Northeast and hoped to draw the attention of national media towards them.
“The present national and international scenario demands both the central government and the national media unlearn and re-learn about the Northeast,” she wrote in a Newlaundry article published in August 2017.
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