IT panel to recommend umbrella body for TV, print and online media

The Parliamentary panel on communications and information technology led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Nishikant Dubey will recommend that the Union government form an umbrella media regulatory body, Media Council of India, to regulate print, television and online media, functionaries aware of the development said on Friday.

According to a senior member of the panel, an umbrella body is needed given that the same content appears across platforms. “You work for a paper. Your articles in the paper comes under the purview of the Press Council of India. But when the same article appears online edition of the paper, there is no regulatory mechanism.”

Currently, two different bodies oversee print and electronic media and there is no central regulator to control online content. 

The Press Council of India, a body constituted through an act of Parliament, is a statutory quasi-judicial autonomous authority with the objectives of preserving the freedom of the press and maintaining and improving the standards of newspapers and news agencies.

The panel, which discussed threadbare the raging issue of fake news in its meeting on Friday, plans to recommend this, apart from other sweeping changes in the regulatory system governing the media landscape.

In the meeting, Dubey said, “Paid news is rampant. Gullible and illiterate people believe the same as truth. Ethical boundaries are crossed due to lack of strong regulatory mechanism. Expensive and long-drawn legal battles faced by the journalists and media houses discourage investigative journalism. Fake news is playing havoc in the country especially during the elections. Media trails of sensational cases sometimes affects the legal course.”

“In order to increase TRPs, many TV news channels focus on sensationalism over serious journalism. Rather than focusing on healthy discussions, TV debates often turn into shouting matches and mud-slinging. Crime and celebrity news receive disproportionate coverage, sidelining important issues,” he added.

Dubey also expressed concern over the power of social media platforms , controlled by Big Tech, operating from foreign countries.

India’s oldest law on press is the Press and Registration of Books (PRB) Act of 1867. Registrar of Newspapers for India came in to existence in 1956, which has been replaced by the Press and Registration of Periodicals Act of 2023.

TV news in India is regulated by The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, that aims to safeguard the interest of subscribers and prevent transmission of broadcast that are detrimental to national interests. The law has been amended through the Jan Vishwas Act of 2023.