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The News Broadcasters Association (NBA), which represents 30 channels run by 14 broadcasters, has set up a body to enforce a code of ethics and address public grievances
Self-regulation for the broadcasting industry has finally seen the light of day with the News Broadcasting Standards Disputes Redressal Authority beginning operations on October 2, 2008. Set up by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA), which represents 30 channels run by 14 broadcasters, it is headed by former Chief Justice J S Verma. Apart from the chairman, the Authority consists of eight members -- four ‘eminent persons’ and four editors. Historian Ramachandra Guha, sociologist Dipankar Gupta, former Nasscom president Kiran Karnik and Nitin Desai, a former undersecretary general at the UN are the four eminent persons on the panel. The four editors include Vinod Kapri, managing editor, India TV; B V Rao, group editor, Zee News; Milind Khandekar, managing editor, Star News; and Arnab Goswami, editor-in-chief, Times Now. The Authority will have jurisdiction over 30 news and current affairs channels in the country, owned by 14 leading broadcasters that include TV Today, NDTV, MCCS, Times Now, CNN IBN, Zee News, Sun TV, and ETV, among others. Presently, there are over 250 television channels in the country. The Authority will enforce NBA’s Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Standards. It will also act on complaints from the viewing public. Any viewer can send a complaint to the broadcaster within seven days of telecast of a programme and the broadcaster will be required to reply within a week’s time. If the complainant is not satisfied with the response, he/she can file a complaint before the Authority within a fortnight. However, registering a complaint will cost Rs 1,000 per complaint, and with the Authority empowered to impose costs of up to Rs 10,000 on the complainant this could well discourage viewers from lodging complaints. The Authority can impose a fine not exceeding Rs 1 lakh if a channel is found guilty and can also ask the erring channel to inform its viewers about the punishment and warnings. The Authority can also recommend that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) revoke the licence of an erring broadcaster. The content code also has something to say about “sting operations” which have been widely and sometimes controversially used. Sting operations will be used as a tool of journalism only if the story serves an “identifiable larger public interest”. The code adds that “news channels will, as a ground rule, ensure that sting operations are carried out only as a tool for getting conclusive evidence of wrong-doing or criminality, and that there is no deliberate alteration of visuals, or editing, or interposing done with the raw footage in a way that it also alters or misrepresents the truth or presents only a portion of the truth”. Several news channels have been criticised for encouraging superstition by carrying stories of miraculous cures and events. The code states that news channels will not broadcast any material that glorifies superstition, occultism and ghosts. Currently, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India regulates television transmission and technology, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting regulates content. The government is yet to legislate a broadcasting Bill that provides for a broadcasting regulator that will administer both content and transmission. Media owners are anyway unwilling to submit to government regulation of content on the plea that it will compromise the media’s independence and freedom of speech. According to the I&B ministry, it has issued 80 warnings to various channels for violation of the programming and advertising code. Source: livemint.com, October 3, 2008
www.ndtv.com, October 3, 2008
televisionpoint.com, October 3, 2008
Zee News, October 2, 2008
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