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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Press Council panel criticizes Bihar govt for gagging press

Press Council panel criticizes Bihar govt for gagging press

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published Published on Feb 13, 2013   modified Modified on Feb 13, 2013
-The Times of India

In a scathing indictment of the Bihar government, a Press Council report has leveled serious charges against the state establishment including attempts to censor the media, misuse its "monopolistic status" for giving advertisements and arm-twisting newspapers to publish positive stories.

Comparing the situation to Emergency, the three-member team that recently submitted its report to PCI chief Markandey Katju said that the Nitish Kumar government was forcing the press to function as its "undeclared mouthpiece." The report said journalists in the state are now "gagged, muted and handicapped".

"The newspapers either avoid publication of news related to crime, ransom, land grabbing by the leaders of the ruling establishment or their supporters, murders, and the activities of the land mafia, or they are underplayed and published in brief as small news items," said the team adding that "free and fair" journalism was being muzzled.

"News relating to agitations, public concern do not find place in the newspapers, for they dare to raise uncomfortable questions for the government because they point fingers on the weaknesses and faults of the governance," the report added.

It demanded that an independent agency be created to release advertisements to media strictly on basis of guidelines. The PCI panel said that the entire media industry in Bihar depends mainly on the state government advertisements as being an industrially backward state, it lacked private commercial ads. "In such an ad-market condition the state government enjoys a monopolistic status.

Taking advantage of its monopolistic status in handing out advertisements , the government is ostensibly found to be using this status as a lever to arm-twist the media houses with an eye to compel newspaper house managements to willy-nilly function as its undeclared mouthpiece," the panel said.

The PCI team also said that even the Right to Information Act seemed to be ineffective in Bihar as information officers allegedly do not give information to journalists and various sections of the society giving reasons that the information could be used as news.

The Times of India, 12 February, 2013, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Press-Council-panel-criticizes-Bihar-govt-for-gagging-press/articleshow/18470573.cms


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