Editors' Guild slams Tewari's suggestion

Editors Guild of India today termed Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari's suggestion of licensing journalists as an "undemocratic" practice and said it is a tool of totalitarian states to control the media.
"The reporting of facts and the expression of ideas is the right of every citizen and to require the passing of a test and the possession of a licence issued by the government would be a violation of the very concept of freedom," N Ravi, President of Editors Guild of India, said in a statement.
He said Tewari's suggestion that journalists should be tested and licenced to practice the profession, like doctors and advocates, "is a recipe for the total state control of media".

"In this age of citizen journalists, bloggers and social media and internet users, it would be ridiculous to introduce any restriction on who should practise journalism even if it were possible to enforce it," Ravi said.