Founding Chairperson

Mr. Pant is an advocate for the independent media, known for his commitment and actions to media development and press freedom at national, regional and global levels. In 2015, Pant founded Media Action Nepal (MAN), a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to promoting independent and accountable media. Under his leadership, Media Action Nepal has become an active member of global media development and press freedom networks, including the Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network (MFC-CN), ACOS Alliance and the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD).

From February 2022 to August 2024, Pant served as a Co-Chair of the Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network (MFC-CN), an international network comprising 22 national, regional, and global organizations. In this role, he provided strategic leadership and facilitated collaboration between the Media Freedom Coalition, a high-level, multi-stakeholder initiative of 51 countries advocating for media freedom and journalist safety, and a broader civil society network of over 150 organizations.

An Invited Lecturer of Media Ethics at the Tbilisi State University and Media and Globalization at the University of Georgia, he is the Country Representative of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) for Nepal. He has held teaching roles in development journalism at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (2008–2009), and various media studies courses at Kathmandu University, Nepal (2010–2018).

A former UN Programme Specialist, Pant began his career over two decades ago as a journalist, progressing through roles ranging from reporter to editor in various media institutions. He has co-edited significant research publications, including Supporting Safety of Journalists in Nepal: An Assessment Based on UNESCO‘s Safety Indicators- A Media safety Landscape of Nepal (2016), and was the lead researcher for the UNESCO/PMA study on the on Impact of COVID-19 on media freedom, journalist safety and media viability in Southeast Asia (2021). He has also contributed to the Advisory Editorial Board for IGI Global, USA, authoring works such as “Combating Threats to Media Freedom and Journalist Safety (2020)” & “Discrimination, Gender Equality and Safety Risks in Journalism (2021)” .

Pant’s recent works include leading studies and publications such as ‘Code of Conduct to Improve Conflict Sensitive Reporting and Safety of Journalists in South Asia, 2021‘, Media, Elections and Human Rights : A Study on Media Coverage of Elections from Human Rights Perspectives, 2022 and Conflict Sensitive Journalism and Communication in Nepal: A Baseline Study, 2023.

He is also an international expert facilitator, moderator, and speaker, renowned for his extensive experience in leading dialogues and discussions on press freedom and media development at a global scale.