Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance that the government has no plans to curb the freedom of the media should put an end to the controversy that arose in the wake of the television coverage of the terror attacks in Mumbai. Should television channels be allowed complete freedom to provide live coverage of emergency situations, or should the government step in and vet the television footage of such situations before it goes on air? The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting lost no time in coming out with a proposal to amend the cable television network rules to regulate the coverage of emergency situations like war, violence and operations where security forces have to overcome terrorists or other hostile groups. The amendment would have required television news channels to carry only delayed footage of such emergency situations and after it was cleared by a government official. Broadcasters opposed the proposal arguing that this amounted to imposition of censorship on the electronic media. This country is well aware that media censorship in a democracy does not work. More importantly, the idea of government officials authorising live footage of emergency situations is simply not feasible. It is, therefore, a welcome relief that the information and broadcasting ministry has quickly withdrawn the proposal and the prime minister has given the assurance that nothing would be done to curb the freedom of the media.
This is not to say that the issues that the television coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks raised have been fully addressed. Having got the prime minister’s assurance that no curbs on its freedom will be imposed, the media must get down to the task of defining for itself what constitutes responsible live coverage of emergency situations. There are important security issues involved in the live coverage of war and terrorist activities. The media cannot afford to ignore those. As pointed out by some broadcasters in their meeting with the prime minister, many television channels had indeed carried visuals of the commando operations at Nariman House in Mumbai in November almost 15 to 40 minutes after they took place. Nothing was lost by such delayed coverage. More importantly, this was decided by the television channels through mutual consultation as part of a code of conduct they agreed to honour. Indeed, similar restraint was shown by the European television channels when they suspended for a few hours the carriage of live footage of the London bombings in 2005. Since this too was done voluntarily and through mutual consultation, there was no uproar or controversy.
While voluntary restraint is to be encouraged, it is also time broadcasters in India started grappling with the question of what constitutes responsible coverage and made it their issue before others make it their own agenda. The proposal to amend the cable television network rules has been dropped. But the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has not given up its plan to set up a standing media consultative committee to frame guidelines for coverage of emergency situations. Media representatives have been made members of the committee. The committee should have its work cut out for itself. How should responsible news coverage be defined? What should differentiate a news channel from one that offers entertainment in the garb of news? And should media companies set up a self-regulatory organisation that decides what constitutes responsible news coverage?
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