Avoid parallel trial on subjudice matters: Jaitley to media

Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday asked the media to avoid conducting parallel trials while reporting subjudice matters.

Delivering the first Justice J.S. Verma memorial lecture on "Freedom and responsibility of media" here, Jaitley said contours of censorship have been defied by technological developments.

"Technological developments have defied the contours of censorship and the challenges for the media lie within, in the context of ownership patterns, financial sustainability and financial models which lead to aberrations such as paid news," he said.

"...constructive deliberations on all issues relating to media freedom and responsibility need to be initiated amongst all stakeholders," he said.

Talking about challenges the media faces these days, the minister said that in the last two decades, the conventional contours of issues pertaining to freedom and responsibility of media had changed "due to changes in the nature and content of media and the definition of news".

"The challenge before the media is to ensure quality and credibility along with the responsibility to play the role of an educator in handling sensitive issues," he said.

Jaitley said the challenge for the media also lay in maintaining high ethical standards on the issue of conflict of interest "where it needs to be very careful".

Media responsibility was critical in addressing matters related to security, social tension, privacy of the individual and issues that involved subjudice connotation, he said.

During the programme, organised by the News Broadcasters Association, the minister also recalled the outstanding contribution of Justice Verma in the domains of human rights, gender equality, probity and media freedom as the "conscience keeper of the society".