Exercise restraint in attack coverage: Govt to channels

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued an advisory to the news channels in the country to exercise restraint in airing visuals from the Mumbai attack and other reports related to the tragedy. A note from the ministry issued today stated: “Repeated visuals and stories pertaining to the attack, which would make the perpetrators feel their attack was a ‘success’, should, therefore, now be avoided.”

The advisory issued to all the news and current affairs channels, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation and the News Broadcasters Association said that if the unbalanced reporting by TV channels continued “it may be treated as coverage against the interest of the nation in the circumstances and attract appropriate action as per rules and as per terms and conditions of the permission granted for uplinking and downlinking of TV channels in India.”

The editors of several news channels met today to discuss the response to the advisory. While the final decision on the position to be taken by the members of the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) will be taken tomorrow, there was a general sense of disagreement with the overall advisory. A news channel source said that the NBA members were likely to release their statement tomorrow. “It’s difficult for the media to abdicate its responsibility at this hour and if we follow the advisory and not raise questions, who will?” said a source.

The advisory said that television news channels were devoting almost 100 per cent news coverage time to “replay the attack, general criticism, display of shocked public reaction, eyewitness accounts, multimedia reconstruction of the attack, display of blood and gore… to the exclusion of almost all other news of national and international significance.”