Media owners critical of Paid News report

By Gopal Krishna
27 Apr 2010

The Press Council Meet to discuss its report on “Paid News” remained inconclusive.
Due to the objections raised by media barons, the meeting of Press Council of India (PCI) to discuss its sub-committee’s report on the Paid News scandal ended without conclusion on April 26. The Council will convene another meeting to conclude the proceedings on the said report.

After the meeting, PCI Chairman, Justice G N Ray said, “It was inconclusive. The report will be discussed at the next meeting. The Press Council’s views on the sub-committee’s report would be concluded in the next meeting within two months.”

Owners and managers of the newspapers who are in the Press Council objected to the contents of the sub-committee’s report and said that the report was defamatory towards the whole media. However, the authors of the report denied the charge. The media owners also questioned the reason for hurry in finalizing the report.

“There was absence of consensus among the 23 members (out of 28) who were present. As of now the report has neither been accepted nor rejected. Consequently, a larger committee might be constituted by the Chairman that would work to find consensus based on this report”, said Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a member of the Press Council and one of the two authors of the report.

Four members of Parliament who are members of the Press Council were not present in the meeting.

The media owners alleged that the report mentioned names of the media houses that were violating the provisions of Income Tax Act and Companies Act by not accounting for the money received from the candidates. The report is said to refer to the SEBI’s letter to the PCI on the issue of “private treaties” between media companies and other corporate entities.

This report on “paid news” tracks the incidents of newspapers demanding money from candidates for favourable coverage during the April-May 2009 Lok Sabha Elections and September-October 2009 assembly elections of Maharashtra and Haryana.

The sub-committee’s 71 page report condemns the unethical practice of Paid News and calls upon all editors of the country to desist from publishing any form of advertisements masquerading as news. The report puts the onus on media organizations to clearly distinguish between news and advertisements with proper disclosure norms.

The report is based on the testimonies of aggrieved politicians of almost all the political parties and senior journalists who have named many newspapers which asked for money and offered ‘rates and packages’ for blurring boundaries between news and advertisements or “advertorials” to help the candidates in the elections.