The editorial discusses the exploding trend of "media coverage packages" during the recent Maharashtra state assembly elections, where many media outlets sold coverage and positive publicity to candidates in exchange for large sums of money. This effectively shut out smaller parties and independent voices who could not afford such packages. It was alleged that over 50% of newly elected MLAs had criminal charges against them, yet some received adulatory coverage without mentioning this. The scale of such paid coverage was large, with some high-end candidates spending over Rs. 1.5 crore for special supplements. This undermined fair coverage of issues and misled readers by passing off paid propaganda as real news stories.
1. 1
A
Dissertation on
“Media Coverage Packages”: Maharashtra Assembly Election-2009
By
Shashikant Bhagat
Nalsar Pro ID No. MLH39_09
A Project Paper Submitted in Partial fulfillment of P.G. Diploma in Media
Laws for Module – I (Media and Public Policy)
December 2009
Nalsar University of Law (Nalsar Pro), Hyderabad
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Table of Contents
Sr. Heading Page
No. No.
01. Introduction: - 3
a) Revenue Model: 4
b) Advertisements: 5
c) PR Articles: 6
d) Advertorial: 7
02 Treatment: - 8
a) The Social Scenario 9
b) The Issue 10
c) The Medium, Message and 10
Money :
03. Role of Journalism: - 15
a) Journalism for Sale: 16
b) The Way Ahead: 18
c) The Consequences: 19
04. Conclusions 21
05. Bibliography 23
06. Endnotes 25
4. 1
Revenue Model
The newspaper industry in India is very different in both the style of its
operation and the nature of publication when compared to other countries across the
world. One must first comprehend the two markets before passing judgment, the
Indian Newspaper market is the only market in the world today with a scope for
expansion and profitability. This market defies the current ongoing global trend
where newspaper readership is plummeting in the developed countries. The Indian
newspaper (daily) market has seen an increase of 1.26 Crore readers in the period
2005-06 (data according to NRS1 – 2006).
This growth can be attributed to the significant rise in literacy and awareness
coupled with the rapid growth witnessed by the country in the last decade. But we
must consider that in order to sustain this kind of growth the newspaper rates must
be low. The Indian Newspaper market offers the cheapest newspaper service in the
world. The high readership and the large advertising revenue are major reasons for
this trend of low parity pricing strategy.
The global scenario however is quite different with majority of the newspapers
like The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other eminent
newspapers running in huge financial debts, due to decline in advertising revenue
and a steady fall in circulation. Today several of these publications have been forced
to shut their print editions and are merely surviving on their internet versions.
One must understand that the actual price of publishing a newspaper copy is
much larger than the price the reader purchases it for, this reduction in price is
brought about by the publisher by selling space in the newspaper for
advertisements. The revenue so generated is then used to make up for the
remainder of the expenses incurred.
This now clearly indicates that advertising revenue is the major cause for the
very existence of the newspapers today, thereby clearly indicating that it would be
nearly impossible for newspapers to give unbiased news coverage as is expected by
their readers. Further the agenda of newspapers today too has varied to a great
extent from focusing on developmental and educative news, the onus has now
shifted to more commercial news i.e. news which is of a financial benefit to the
newspaper.
1
NRS- National Readership Survey conducted by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. NRS 2006 is
the latest conducted survey.
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Advertisements
An advertisement is a paid form of non personal presentation of ideas, goods
or services through an identified sponsor. It could be used as a medium to generate
awareness or to promote or to sell a product .Today, the entire world of media
depends on advertisements as a source of revenue to run their operations.
In the globalised world of high media coverage, it is essential that the
marketer conveys his message to his prospective customers. The impact of media
organizations is phenomenal and is therefore used by the marketer as a tool for
persuasion to attain high profits. Newspapers are preferred as message carriers
because of the high readership they have.
However one must understand that a medium for advertising is only chosen
when the advertiser can obtain maximum viewers at minimum cost while also
considering other parameters such as the target audience of the newspaper, the
credibility of the publication and the public’s perception of the newspaper. The
newspaper however ensures never to lose its clients as they are the financial
bloodline of the publication.
It is a two way relationship where the newspaper needs the advertiser for the
revenue while the advertiser also needs the medium for its impact and the favorable
momentum it can generate, thereby clearly indicating the symbiotic relationship
between the two as each aids the other in growth and maturity.
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Public Relation Articles
Public Relations can be defined as deliberate, planned and sustained efforts
to establish and maintain relations between an organization and its public in other
words it’s a series of practices performed by an organization in order to foster and
maintain amicable relations with its clientele.
This is an upcoming trend in media today where organizations try to give
news stories to the media which are focused on the company’s growth,
achievements and other such positive developments. The companies have
understood today that in order to maintain a good public image they must constantly
be in public’s eye.
These articles when published create a positive aura pertaining to the
company in the mind of the reader as unlike advertisements; here the reader can’t
figure out the existence of a sponsor. These articles are also free of all the clutter
which accompanies an advertisement thus conveying the message in a subtler but
surer way.
This trend implies that these organizations try their best to make it into the
news and often use illegal practices like bribing reporters, offering them gifts and
other benefits to ensure publication of their articles. This trend has also led to the
misconception that the content published in these articles is accepted by the news
organizations and the positive opinion in the article is also endorsed by the
publication.
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Advertorials
Advertorials are advertisements which look like editorials (Advert-orial) in a
broader sense they are advertisements placed by identified sponsors but placed in a
way to seem like news. These are found to be more effective because the public is
unable to distinguish between this and a news story.
To make things tougher for the public these stories have exactly the same
structure as a normal news story and generally do have a headline, a lead
paragraph, and does follow the famous ‘inverted pyramid2’ structure that is generally
used to write a news story.
This trend is harmful to the reader because these stories deceive the readers
as they are mere advertisements who only aim at persuasion of the potential
customer. Though an even more dangerous trend has now emerged, this trend now
sees the publishers not making any sort of demarcations between such advertorials
and news stories.
Newspapers as being ‘opinion generators’ i.e. create an opinion in the minds
of the people by carrying ideas and philosophy in their editorial content, highly
influence the way the readers think and their approach to life and other social and
domestic stimuli. The common man hardly suspects the presence of such trends in
the media industry and is taken for a ride by these media organizations.
In a nutshell the advertorial is a very successful but manipulative tool which is
used by the advertiser; this move seriously if noticed by the public at large can
damage the credibility of the newspaper and also tarnish its image in the public’s
eye.
2
Inverted Pyramid: This is a News structure in which the most recent and the most important
portion of the story comes first and the remainder of the story then follows
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TREATMENTS
The Social Scenario
Now, that we have acclimatized ourselves with the business model and the
sources of revenue for a newspaper, we now focus ourselves on the situation and
circumstances in which ‘paid news’ was developed. Paid news though as the name
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suggests is news published or broadcast by an organization when an interested
party pays the media firm to carry that news article.
The major steps were taken by this form of News during the recent Global
Recession3. It is said ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ and so it has been in this
case, the Recession lead to the drying out of funds and a huge decrease in liquidity4
in the global markets. Investors cashed on their stocks and rapid selling resulted in
plummeting of the stock market. This negative trend hit several companies’
operations as no funds were available which in turn led to the loss of employment of
several people. This loss of employment led to a decrease in demand of goods and
services as the style of living too was reduced by the unemployed. This decrease in
demand led to an increase in supply thus causing the prices to crash causing a
shortage in revenue and an overall collapse of the industry.
The media industry suffered because its major source of revenue was
advertisements and their clientele had no money to advertise this resulted in a huge
decrease in profits and revenue for the newspapers. Newspapers were forced to cut
down supplements, bring down the number of pages as the cash flow declined and
soon other sources of revenue were looked for.
Amid such circumstances the idea of ‘Paid News’ was born as media
organizations realized that people craving for media attention would happily pay for
obtaining that attention, thus articles on people, features , Page-3 stories and other
such articles were published in an exchange for cash strategy.
This trend soon caught up and important local news was soon being missed
out upon as paid stories made their way into the normal news stories. This can be
summarized as the cornerstone from which the trend of ‘Pay packages for news has
sprouted’.
However the Question remains: With the revival of the economy is this
practice here to stay or will it be done away with?
3
Recession: A time period of financial turmoil and trouble in which the economy grows
negatively due to shortage of liquidity or bad accounting processes
4
Liquidity: Being in cash or easily convertible to cash; debt paying ability
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The Issue
The issue now arises is the fact of these ‘media coverage packages’ which
have come to light today and are now being discussed all around us. The issue
though which has been referred to the Press Council of India was unveiled in an
editorial by P. Sainath of The Hindu5 (published by M/s Kasturi & Sons) The article
carried in the Hindu on the 31st October 2009 is as follows:
The medium, message and the money6
P. Sainath
The Assembly elections saw the culture of “coverage packages” explode
across Maharashtra. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any
coverage at all.
C. Ram Pandit can now resume his weekly column. Dr. Pandit (name
changed) had long been writing for a well-known Indian language newspaper in
Maharashtra. On the last day for the withdrawal of nominations to the recent State
Assembly elections, he found himself sidelined. An editor at the paper apologized to
him saying: “Panditji, your columns will resume after October 13. Till then, every
page in this paper is sold.” The editor, himself an honest man, was simply speaking
the truth.
In the financial orgy that marked the Maharashtra elections, the media were
never far behind the moneybags. Not all sections of the media were in this mode,
but quite a few. Not just small local outlets, but powerful newspapers and television
channels, too. Many candidates complained of “extortion” but were not willing to
make an issue of it for fear of drawing media fire. Some senior journalists and
editors found themselves profoundly embarrassed by their managements. “The
media have been the biggest winners in these polls,” says one ruefully. “In this
period alone,” says another, “they’ve more than bounced back from the blows of the
‘slowdown’ and done so in style.” Their poll-period take is estimated to be in
hundreds of millions of rupees. Quite a bit of this did not come as direct advertising
but in packaging a candidate’s propaganda as “news.”
5
The Hindu: Is a popular news daily in South India, established in 1875 and is estimated to have
a circulation of 1.5 million copies daily.
6
The editorial column has been exactly picked up as it had appeared on publication in The
Hindu on Oct.31 2009.
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The Assembly elections saw the culture of “coverage packages” explode
across the State. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any
coverage at all. Issues didn’t come into it. No money, no news. This effectively shut
out smaller parties and independent voices with low assets and resources. It also
misled viewers and readers by denying them any mention of the real issues some of
these smaller forces raised. The Hindu reported on this (April 7, 2009) during the
Lok Sabha elections, where sections of the media were offering low-end “coverage
packages" for Rs.15 lakh to Rs.20 lakh. “High-end” ones cost a lot more. The State
polls saw this go much further.
None of this, as some editors point out, is new. However, the scale is new
and stunning. The brazenness of it (both ways) quite alarming. And the game has
moved from the petty personal corruption of a handful of journalists to the structured
extraction of huge sums of money by media outfits. One rebel candidate in western
Maharashtra calculates that an editor from that region spent Rs.1 crore “on just local
media alone.” And, points out the editor, “he won, defeating the official candidate of
his party.”
The deals were many and varied. A candidate had to pay different rates for
‘profiles,’ interviews, a list of ‘achievements,’ or even a trashing of his rival in some
cases. (With the channels, it was “live” coverage, a ‘special focus,’ or even a team
tracking you for hours in a day.) Let alone bad-mouthing your rival, this “pay-per”
culture also ensures that the paper or channel will not tell its audiences that you
have a criminal record. Over 50 per cent of the MLAs just elected in Maharashtra
have criminal charges pending against them. Some of them featured in adulatory
“news items” which made no mention of this while tracing their track record.
At the top end of the spectrum, “special supplements” cost a bomb. One put
out by one of the State’s most important politicians — celebrating his “era” — cost
an estimated Rs.1.5 crore. That is, just this single media insertion cost 15 times
what he is totally allowed to spend as a candidate. He has won more than the
election, by the way.
One common low-end package: Your profile and “four news items of your
choice” to be carried for between Rs.4 lakh or more depending on which page you
seek. There is something chilling about those words “news items of your choice.”
Here is news on order. Paid for. (Throw in a little extra and a writer from the paper
will help you draft your material.) It also lent a curious appearance to some
newspaper pages. For instance, you could find several “news items” of exactly the
same size in the same newspaper on the same day, saying very different things.
Because they were really paid-for propaganda or disguised advertisements. A
typical size was four columns by ten centimeters. When a pro-saffron alliance paper
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carries “news items” of this size extolling the Congress-NCP, you know strange
things are happening. (And, oh yes, if you bought “four news items of your choice”
many times, a fifth one might be thrown in gratis.)
There were a few significant exceptions to the rule. A couple of editors tried
hard to bring balance to their coverage and even ran a “news audit” to ensure that.
And journalists who, as one of them put it, “simply stopped meeting top contacts in
embarrassment.” Because, often, journalists with access to politicians were
expected to make the approach. That information came from a reporter whose paper
sent out an email detailing “targets” for each branch and edition during the elections.
The bright exceptions were drowned in the flood of lucre. And the huge sums pulled
in by that paper have not stopped it from sacking droves of staffers. Even from
editions that met their ‘targets.’
There are the standard arguments in defense of the whole process.
Advertising packages are the bread and butter of the industry. What’s wrong with
that? “We have packages for the festive season. Diwali packages, or for the Ganesh
puja days.” Only, the falsehoods often disguised as “news” affect an exercise central
to India’s electoral democracy. And are outrageously unfair to candidates with less
or no money. They also amount to exerting undue influence on the electorate.
There is another poorly assessed — media-related — dimension to this. Many
celebrities may have come out in May to exhort people to vote. This time, several of
them appear to have been hired by campaign managers to drum up crowds for their
candidate. Rates unknown.
All of this goes hand in hand with the stunning rise of money power among
candidates. More so among those who made it the last time and have amassed
huge amounts of wealth since 2004. With the media and money power wrapped like
two peas in a pod, this completely shuts out smaller, or less expensive, voices. It
just prices the aam aadmi out of the polls. Never mind they are contested in his
name.
Your chances of winning an election to the Maharashtra Assembly, if you are
worth over Rs.100 million, are 48 times greater than if you were worth just Rs.1
million or less. Far greater still, if that other person is worth only half-a-million rupees
or less. Just six out of 288 MLAs in Maharashtra who won their seats declared
assets of less than half-a-million rupees. Nor should challenges from garden variety
multi-millionaires (those worth between Rs.1 million-10 million) worry you much.
Your chances of winning are six times greater than theirs, says the National Election
Watch (NEW).
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The number of ‘crorepati’ MLAs (those in the Rs.10 million-plus category) in
the State Assembly has gone up by over 70 per cent in the just concluded elections.
There were 108 elected in 2004. This time, there are 184. Nearly two-thirds of the
MLAs just elected in Maharashtra and close to three-fourths of those in Haryana, are
crorepatis. These and other startling facts fill the reports put out by NEW, a coalition
of over 1,200 civil society groups across the country that also brought out excellent
reports on these issues during the Lok Sabha polls in April-May. Its effort to inform
the voting public is spearheaded by the NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms
(ADR).
Each MLA in Maharashtra, on average, is worth over Rs.40 million. That is, if
we treat their own poll affidavit declarations as genuine. That average is boosted by
Congress and BJP MLAs who seem richer than the others, being well above that
mark. The NCP and the Shiv Sena MLAs are not too far behind, though, the average
worth of each of their legislators being in the Rs.30 million-plus bracket.
Each time a giant poll exercise is gone through in this most complex of
electoral democracies, we congratulate the Election Commission on a fine job.
Rightly so, in most cases. For, many times, its interventions and activism have
curbed rigging, booth capturing and ballot stuffing. On the money power front,
though — and the media’s packaging of big money interests as “news” — it is hard
to find a single significant instance of rigorous or deterrent action. These too, after
all, are serious threats. More structured, much more insidious than crude ballot
stuffing. Far more threatening to the basics of not just elections, but democracy
itself.
The article clearly written by one from the journalists’ community has created
a public outrage and has caused one to view the entire election process with an
angle and perspective that never before existed clearly indicating that ‘Paid
Journalism’ was at its peak and was worth at least a few thousand crores in revenue
to the various media organizations that practiced it.
This article led to the publication of several such articles and acted as a
trigger which uncovered the whole ruckus that was part and parcel of the election
process in 2009 across the country. This article led to a public outcry and a feeling
of being deceived and manipulated by the public at large, which no longer feels that
the Media Organizations are interested to act as the ‘fourth pillar of democracy’ 7 they
were expected to be clearly indicating that the media organizations have ceased to
7
A metaphor used by Dr. Keval J Kumar in his bokk Mass communication in India by Jaico
Books.
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remain impartial and unbiased in the whole process and will most likely promote and
publicize only their vested interests.
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ROLE OF
JOURNALISM
The public sentiment was then further echoed by The Hindu again on the 7th of
November, 2009 in another article which ran as follows:
Journalism for sale8
India’s elections, which in mid-2009 brought 415 million voters to the 1.18
million ballot units in 834,944 polling stations and were mostly peaceful, may be one
of the wonders of the world. But it is widely understood that in 2009 the free, fair,
and democratic attributes of these elections have been compromised as never
8
The editorial column has been exactly picked up as it had appeared on publication in The
Hindu on Oct.31 2009.
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before by the large-scale, illegal, and scandalous use of money power — which, to a
considerable extent, involved recycled dirty money garnered through corruption in
executive and legislative office. The role of the Election Commission of India in
curbing booth capturing, intimidation of voters, and some other kinds of electoral
fraud has won public appreciation. But as P. Sainath points out in his article, “The
medium, message and the money,” published in The Hindu on October 26, 2009, “it
is hard to find a single instance of rigorous or deterrent action” by the ECI in the face
of such a serious danger to the democratic process. That is a large question that
needs to be addressed in depth and in all its complexity by the various players in the
political system.
The new shame is the extensive and brazen participation of not insignificant
sections of the news media, notably large-circulation Indian language newspapers in
two of India’s largest States, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, in this genre of
corruption — which a politician speaking at a Hyderabad media seminar memorably
characterized as a “Cash Transfer Scheme” from politicians to journalists. Sainath’s
article exposes the phenomenon of “coverage packages” exploding across India’s
most industrialized State during the recent Assembly election. Candidates paid
newspapers different rates for well-differentiated and streamlined packages of news
coverage. Those who could not or would not pay for the packages tended to be
blacked out.
The Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists has, on the basis of a
sample survey conducted in West Godavari district, estimated that newspapers
across the State netted Rs. 350 crore to Rs. 400 crore through editorial coverage
sold to candidates during the 2009 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Some
candidates even recorded the expenditure incurred in purchasing editorial coverage
in their official accounts submitted to the ECI. With some senior journalists drawing
its attention to this new-fangled cash transfer scheme in Andhra Pradesh, the Press
Council of India has constituted a two-member committee to inquire into the matter.
What to do about such a shocking breach of readers’ trust (which is unlikely to be
confined to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra) by the so-called Fourth Estate will
form the subject of a follow-up editorial.
The verdict of the issue sadly won’t be out till the Press Council of India
debates the pros and cons of the situation, the violations and transgressions made
by the media houses during this controversial period and finally comes out with a
verdict it feels will be fair in its regard.
But the articles clearly expose that the phrase ‘voice of the poor and the
meek’ can no longer be associated with the kind of journalism practiced today. The
commercial needs of the media have resulted in it being handicapped and financially
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driven in order to meet its commitments. This has caused the viewers and the
readers to consider whether the news reported by these organizations is true? Or
reported in the right earnest frame of mind with the right balance and free of any
form of bias.
The Way Ahead
This issue has clearly conveyed a singular message that the credibility of
news reported by news organizations has taken a huge hit and the common man or
the average viewer/ reader has been deceived by those very people whom he pays
to keep him abreast with the latest developments he feels are important. This issue
has also made the common man realize the unbiased scene of media coverage
today as well as the stands taken by media houses on issues owing to advertisers
and their other commercial commitments, ensuring that an agenda free news
service is impossible in today’s scenario.
The question now arises that irrespective of everything, the only reason the
media house receives advertisements is because of the number of people who
subscribe to its news and entertainment services and who would like to view and
read the content put forth. So, it is surely not a wise decision on part of the media to
sacrifice these dedicated people for the sake of a few extra bucks.
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If advertisements and financial benefits are all what an organization seeks
then we must realize that less news content or news content of lower quality would
reduce its target readers thus clearly hurting the prospects of higher readership and
also as a consequence higher revenue as the two are inter related.
This implies that media organizations need to strike a balance between the
two and know that if one is to be sacrificed for the other than it would have an
adverse effect on the entire newspaper and its publication. This balance would
ensure the successful running of the organization.
The Consequences
This issue’s consequences can be seriously be debated and reams of paper
will be inked on these issues. The issue has exceeded moral ethics as well as hurt
the entire process of democracy as a whole seriously leading to contemplation of the
failure of the Media as a unit as well as clearly highlighting the fact that the
manipulative power of the media is unchallenged and democracy ill-equipped to fight
it.
The impact of these steps can be analysed in two steps:
1. Elections: The elections witnessed this fiasco and the power and impact of
the media is now evident to the public. The result of this huge media balloon
which created a series of opinions in the minds of the public would have been
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instrumental in the final outcome. This implies that the election is equal to be
rigged as not all candidates had an equal opportunity to canvass.
The issue also clearly indicates that the richer candidates were benefitted as
they could afford to pay for higher media coverage and were eventually the
final winners, thus clearly violating the extreme limit of expenditure set by The
Election Commission at Rs. 10 Lakh per candidate and what’s more the
media which were to help the EC uphold this set of directives helped the
candidates violate these rules.
The independent candidates stood no chance as they couldn’t match the
funds that could be generated by the political parties thereby faring horribly at
the elections. Democracy seems the final loser as one must remember that in
a democracy the voice of the majority is heard which doesn’t imply that the
minority will be sacrificed for the sake of the majority.
2. Moral Issues: This issue has also seemed to cross ethical and moral
boundaries as the media have set the example of being corrupt and immoral
to the public at large.
The same money could have been made had the candidates advertised, sure
the impact for the candidate would have lessened but the credibility of the
journalism community would have remained untarnished. Ina country like
India where corruption and crime are the order of the day it is the media that
is expected to scrutinize the system and pass a verdict on such social evils
but the media itself committing the crime has clearly indicated the spread of
corruption to the upper echelons of the intelligentsia thus crippling the ability
of the entire country to think in a free and unbiased manner.
The final picture only indicates that the media must have a regulatory body
which monitors its activities and ensures that journalism goes the right way
and remains true to the principle it was founded upon. Media is to play the
role of a mirror to the rulers to show them their flaws and to the ruled a guide.
The rulers must understand the ruled through the media and only then will the
country be at peace. The Media too like the Democracy in the words of
Abraham Lincoln is “of the people, for the people and by the people9.”
9
Words from Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address Nov 19, 1863
21. 1
Conclusion
This entire procedure like the entire country awaits the judgment of the Press
Council of India on the issue. But this entire research and analysis clearly reveals
that the media has failed to remain the ombudsman of the democracy. This brings
into consideration the famous line “Who watches the watchmen?”
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The consequence of the trial could be the establishment of a media
organization that will govern and guide the media organizations. This may seem as
move against article 19 (A) which guarantees freedom of speech but one must
remember that this always not the case. In this case we must sacrifice the freedom
of speech to prevent manipulation of the public and to ensure that the right
information and news is disseminated.
BIBLOGRAPHY
23. 1
Books Refered:
Basu, D.D. 1986 Law of the Press. Nagpur: Wadwa Publications.
M.P. Jain Indian Constitutional Law 2003 Nagpur: Wadwa Publications.
Joseph, M.K. 1997 Freedom of the Press. New Delhi: Anmol Publications.
Ambrish Saxena 2004 Right to Information and Freedom of Press. Kanishka
Publications, New Delhi.
Sharma, Jitendra Kumar. 2002 Ethics of Journalism in Transition. New Delhi:
Authourpress.
Iyer Vendkat. 2000 Mass Media Laws and Regulations in India. Singapore: AMIC.
Bandhyopadhyay, P.K. and Arora, Kuldip Singh. 1998 A Practitioners Guide to
Journalistic Ethics. New Delhi: D.K.
P. B. Sawant & P.K. Bandyopadhyay Advertising Law And Ethics
Anil K. Dixit Press 2006 Laws and Media Ethics. Reference Press, New Delhi
24. 1
Arun Bhatia Media and Communication Ethics Anmol Publications Pvt Ltd. New Delhi
B. Manna. 1998 Mass Media and Laws in India.
Websites
www.presswise.org.uk
www.thehoot.org - Watching Media in the Subcontinent
http://www.nwmindia.org/ -
http://www.pucl.org –
http://www.rtndf.org/ethics/ethicsguidelines.shtml - Journalism ethics guidelines
http://www.ire.org/
http://www.rcfp.org/ -
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/writings.htm
ENDNOTES
Given every endnotes on the topics.