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At its AGM on December 22, 2009, the Editors Guild of India strongly condemned the practice of paid news content and other dubious practices and said it would focus on this issue in 2010
The Editors Guild of India has declared that the menace of “paid news” will be its focus in 2010. At its annual general meeting on December 22, 2009, in Delhi, the industry body that comprises senior editors of news organisations across the country announced that it would set up an ethics committee which will draft a code of conduct on the issue. The Guild said: “Both the media organisations and editors who indulge in it, and the customers who offer payment for such ‘paid news’, are guilty of undermining the free and fair press, which every citizen of India is entitled to.” The Guild also decided to approach the Election Commission to suggest reforms in the election laws, as ‘paid news’ was being used by political parties to circumvent the strict limits on poll expenditure. Allegations of political parties and individuals paying news organisations to carry stories fed to them surfaced during the 2009 general elections. The Guild also condemned the practice of “private treaties” whereby media organisations pick up equity stakes in companies in return for promoting those companies by giving them advertising and other publicity. It said news organisations should disclose their commercial and equity interests in such companies to readers and viewers in a transparent manner. The danger of private treaties is that any news regarding the company that is a partner in the treaty with the news organisation is unlikely to be impartial. Hence the Guild’s insistence on news organisations making it clear in their reportage that they have a stake in the company being written about. While recognising the media’s right to publish and broadcast advertisements on all issues, the Guild said it was imperative that news organisations clearly distinguished between news and advertisements with full and proper disclosure norms, so that no reader or viewer was tricked by any subterfuge of advertisements published or broadcast in the same format, language and style as news. The ethics committee that will draft the code of conduct will be headed by T N Ninan, editor of Business Standard, and will include as members columnist B G Verghese, Sumit Chakravarty, editor of Mainstream, and Madhu Kishwar, editor of Manushi. Source: The Indian Express, December 24, 2009
The Hindu, December 23, 2009
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