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“Television debates using unparliamentary language, journalists making fabricated claims,” stated a strong advisory issued by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Saturday. The Ministry has warned private TV news channels against “making false claims and using scandalous headlines” and stated that they adhere to “the provisions of Section 20 of The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 including to the Programme Code laid down under it.”
The satellite TV channels were pulled up for their coverage of the recent communal unrest in North-west Delhi’s Jahangirpuri on Hanuman Jayanti and even the Russia-Ukraine war. The I&B ministry has now warned that the Central government can “regulate or prohibit the transmission of a channel or programme” if it “considers it necessary”. It stated that some channels are covering events in a way “that appears to be unauthentic, misleading, sensational and using socially unacceptable language and remarks, offending good taste and decency.”
On the Ukraine coverage the Ministry stated that channels have been making “unsubstantiated and fabricated claims and using hyperbole in order to incite audience”. It also stated that channels were “making scandalous headlines unrelated to the news item.” In case of Delhi violence, “certain channels have aired news items with provocative headlines and videos of violence that may incite communal hatred among the communities and disrupt peace and law and order.” The ministry has clearly said that these “channels have further fabricated headlines giving communal colour to actions of authorities.”
Though the Ministry has not named any channel it has found violating these journalist codes and broadcast laws, there have been some channels who have come under sharp criticism for their ‘on ground reports’. Soon after North Delhi Municipal Corportaion’s sudden demolition drive in communally sensitive Jahangirpuri, Aajtak anchor Anjana Om Kashyap was reporting a blow by blow account of the demolition and also rode the JCB deployed by the MCD’s demolition squad. Many others conducted volatile TV debates on the issue later.
Now, the Ministry has noted and “cautioned” private TV channels against broadcasting “debates having unparliamentary, provocative and socially unacceptable language, communal remarks and derogatory references which may have a negative psychological impact on viewers and may also incite communal disharmony and disturb the peace at large,” it stated.
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