Speaker forms panel to study media content and regulate it

Days after MLAs launched a trenchant attack on the media, a Karnataka legislature committee was today formed to study the quality of the content of print and electronic media, its "ill-effects" on public life and recommend regulatory steps.
The 13-member (10 MLAs and three MLCs) joint committee of the Assembly and the Legislative Council, headed by Health and Family Welfare Minister K R Ramesh Kumar, was announced in the Assembly by Speaker K B Koliwad.
The committee's terms of reference and other related issues would be finalised after due consultation with its members, the Speaker said.
After the members, cutting across party lines, brought the media in the line of fire, Koliwad had, on March 22, announced that such a panel would be formed to restrict the "permissiveness" of the media.

The working of the media, particularly the audio-visual media, had come under intense scrutiny of the legislators during a marathon debate initiated by senior member B R Patil of the Karnataka Janatha Paksha, as the members sought to haul the media over the coals.
Those who had taken part in the discussion alleged that the media was airing reports which were derogatory in nature and tarnishing the image of the legislators. They had also narrated their personal "bitter" incidents with the media.

Accusing the media of working with "permissiveness", the members had called for restrictions on it, even as one of them used objectionable words against mediapersons, which the Speaker said would be expunged.

Almost all the MLAs who participated in the March 22 debate have been appointed as members to the committee. They include Congress Chief Whip Ashok Pattan, his party colleagues B R Yavagal, N A Haris, Shivaraj N Tangadagi, S T Somashekar, besides Bharamagouda alias Raju Kage and Suresh Gowda, both from the BJP, and Sa Ra Mahesh and Narayana Gowda of the JDS.
The three members from the Legislative Council are yet to be named.
Meanwhile, Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy has written to the Speaker, requesting him to drop the idea of forming such a committee.
Referring to Jawaharlal Nehru's famous quote "I would rather have an irresponsible press than not have a press at all", he has suggested that the Speaker should make the editors of print and electronic media houses realise the sentiments expressed by the members and ask them to form a code of conduct which would enforce self-regulation.

In a letter, he has also suggested that the Speaker should call the owners and editors of print and electronic media houses for a discussion, and based on it, frame guidelines with unanimity on the nature of language to be used by the media.