Media’s regulation and self-regulation: How both failed
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Manoj Mitta
on July 13, 2009
For my generation of journalists, the first major attempt to muzzle the press came in 1988. It was triggered by a crisis of credibility facing the Rajiv Gandhi government because of its abortive military mission in Sri Lanka and the spate of corruption scandals unearthed by the media. The government hit back with a proposal to tighten the defamation law which broadened the ambit of the offence, shifted the burden of proof from the aggrieved party to the accused newspaper and made it mandatory for editors, publishers and printers to be present in all court hearings.
On August 29, 1988, the then minister for internal security, P Chidambaram, introduced the Defamation Bill out of the blue in Lok Sabha. It adopted the Bill the very next day. But before it could be similarly pushed through Rajya Sabha, the government was besieged by protests from journalists. In what was perhaps the biggest ever demonstration held by journalists in India, top editors led a march on Rajpath. Shortly thereafter, Rajiv Gandhi announced his government’s decision to drop the Defamation Bill.
History seemed to repeat itself early this year when the Manmohan Singh government shelved the latest legislative attempt to gag the Fourth Estate. The provocation this time was 26/11. Since the 60-hour siege of two five-star hotels and a Jewish centre was shown live by news channels, they were the target of the gag proposal which sought to amend the Cable Television Network Rules 1994. The draft amendments involved a slew of restrictions aimed at preventing news broadcasters from showing any live telecast other than an “authorized” feed in the event of a public order crisis. Such drastic curbs on live coverage of events were meant to be imposed at the discretion of an “authorised officer”. All that the channels would have scope to show was “delayed carriage of live feed”.
Taking advantage of the controversy that the real time coverage of the Mumbai siege might have compromised security operations and endangered the lives of victims, the government came up with a programme code forbidding telecast that contained details of identity, number and status of hostages or information regarding the number of security personnel involved or the methods employed by them in a hostage situation. Since most news channels displayed little sensitivity as they hysterically ambushed victims moments after they had escaped from captivity and since one of the channels (India TV) went to the extent of telecasting a telephonic interview with a terrorist even while the siege was on, the proposed code prohibited telecast of any form of live contact with victims or security personnel involved or perpetrators of the crime concerned.
Much like in the case of the Defamation Bill of 1988, the government was all set to rush ahead with the amendments to TV regulations in January 2009 without consulting stakeholders. The move was however stymied this time not by a street demonstration but by extensive lobbying done by the recently-formed News Broadcasters Association (NBA). Thanks to the meetings held by a delegation of channel heads with various political leaders, the government developed second thoughts on the move that could have antagonized the media in the run-up to the general election. The PMO issued an assurance that the matter would be finalized only after “the widest possible consultation with all stakeholders and eliciting their different points of view on the proposed changes.” Not surprisingly, that was the last one heard of those proposed amendments. To its credit, the Manmohan Singh government has shown no sign of reviving the proposal even after it got re-elected in May.
The irony is, this abortive move came close on the heels of NBA’s radical initiative of self-regulation. Responding to the misgivings about the TV coverage of the Mumbai siege, NBA came up with an “emergency protocol” which the channels would obverse as a measure of self-restraint. Though there was much in common between the industry’s own emergency protocol and the government’s draft rules, the crucial difference of course was the draconian power of pre-censorship to be wielded by a bureaucrat.
Had the government succeeded in its attempt to regulate media coverage of terror and other such emergencies, the remedy would have surely proved to be worse than the disease. But then media self-regulation is not without its share of problems – as evident from the very first case in which the dispute resolution authority constituted by NBA under the chairmanship of former chief justice of India J S Verma took action against a TV channel three months ago. The action was on the basis of a complaint lodged by a former CIA analyst of Pakistani origin, Farhana Ali, to leading Hindi channel India TV in relation to a story it ran in the middle of the 26/11 attacks. The story in turn was based on a Reuters report which quoted Farhana Ali as saying that the number of terrorists involved in the ongoing Mumbai siege was not 10 but 23. Her grievance against India TV was that it had misused her interview to Reuters by “deceptively dubbing” it in Hindi in a story that described her as a spy (jasoos in Hindi).
As per the prescribed procedure, India TV kept NBA in the loop about Farhana Ali’s complaint and its subsequent correspondence with her. In due course, the channel carried a corrigendum in a manner that evidently satisfied Ali. But even after the matter was thrashed out by the parties concerned, the NBA authority, interestingly, thought it fit to impose a fine of Rs 1 lakh, which was the highest penalty in its power. It also directed India TV to run an apology on a ticker five times at prime time on any given day stating that the story on Ali was a misrepresentation of facts.
Though it complied with both directions, India TV withdrew its membership from NBA in protest, questioning the fairness of the verdict on various grounds, including the absence of any reference to Ali’s written acceptance of the corrigendum the channel had already carried on its own. Worse, it accused the NBA secretariat of withholding vital evidence from Justice Verma’s panel because of partisan considerations. This allegation put a question mark over the very viability of self-regulation as NBA’s president, G Krishnan, happens to be CEO of TV Today group, which runs Aaj Tak, the main rival of India TV. In a no-holds-barred statement, India TV said, “We would be entirely justified in our belief that the NBA secretariat has virtually become the personal fiefdom of the TV Today group.”
The murky internecine quarrel triggered by the very first penalty that arose out of self-regulation underlines the complexity of the challenge facing the Indian media. It is easier to thumb the nose at the government’s efforts to regulate the media. There is however no getting away from the fact that the alternative - the electronic media’s much-touted self-regulation experiment - is already faltering. If TV channels don’t get their act together sooner rather than later, they will pave the way for government’s intervention with popular support. For, the freedom conferred on the media is meant only to make it more effective in serving the interests of its consumers; it’s not to insulate it from the obligations of transparency and accountability.
(Extracted from a speech delivered by the author at a media conference in Delhi on July 13, 2009.)
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