Pokhara, September 9:

Most of the Pokhara-based newspapers had launched websites with a view to disseminating their content to global readers. But they have been found not updating the websites for the past three months.

In the beginning, they launched websites with much enthusiasm, but it faded gradually and readers are finding stale news on their websites.

Dailies, including Adarsha Samaj, Pokharapatra, Pokhara Awaj, Samadhan and Pokhara Hotline, are being published from Pokhara. Most of them have their own websites, however, none of them are regularly updating the websites.

“The dailies have not appointed separate staffers for the online editions. So the updating of the websites is irregular,” said Punya Poudel, western regional coordinator of the Federation of Nepali Journalists and chief editor of Pokharapatra daily. “The journalists do not get extra salary for updating news on the websites,” he added.

One can find the news item about appointment of Jhala Nath Khanal as the general secretary of the CPN-UML on the home page of the Samadhan Daily. The news was published on May 15.

Similar is the case with websites of other dailies. A news report of the killing of Tarai Army chief John, published on August 30, can still be found on the home page of Pokhara Awaj. However, Adarsha Samaj has been updating the news in its website.

Costly Internet service and lack of adequate knowledge of online technologies including the Unicode system might be the main reasons behind the irregular update of news on the websites.

“Many staffers working in the dallies do not know the online technology.

Due to this, the news are not being updated on the websites,” said Ram Gurung, the owner of pokharacity.com.