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| A Media Council for media control? | | New Delhi, March 26 (Scoop News)- The recent recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on communications and information technology to create a Media Council to bring in different forms of media under one umbrella body needs to be viewed with caution warn media unions. Given the excessive powers of the government to police and censor the media, the issue requires debate and consensus, say the Brihanmumbai Union of Journalists, the Delhi Union of Journalists, the National Alliance of Journalists and Andhra Pradesh Working Journalists Federation.
According to news reports, a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has recommended that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) create a Media Council which would coordinate and implement laws governing different media - print, broadcast and digital - under one umbrella body.
There has been a long-standing demand of journalists’ unions in India to set up a Media Council to replace the Press Council of India, an independent and self-regulatory statutory body set up by an act of Parliament, which is largely toothless and ineffective. However, the intent behind the recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing Committee to set up a Media Council does not seem to be self-regulation but regulation by the government.
There has been no consultation with journalists’ unions and media bodies on the setting up of a mechanism to regulate all forms of media. Any such Council must include representatives from the media, media unions and independent public persons.
In addition, the government has unrolled various repressive laws and regulations to further control the media. Digital media, for instance, is regulated through Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The union government’s attempt to amend these rules and introduce provisions like a ‘fact-checking unit’ was struck down by the Bombay High Court as unconstitutional in September 2024. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 has severely curtailed investigative reportage. A Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, by which the MIB would regulate digital news media including news media platforms and small, independent news broadcasters, as well as over-the-top (OTT) platforms has been kept in abeyance given extensive criticism of its provisions.
The recommendation of a Media Council comes when censorship by the Indian government is at an all time high. Various global indices have ranked press freedom poorly. Impunity for the killing and attacks on journalists is unabated while journalists are jailed or face criminal charges for their investigative reports and take down notices for reports and broadcasts. Not for nothing is India categorised as an ‘electoral autocracy’ in the ‘Democracy Report 2025’, released by the Gothenburg-based V-Dem Institute that tracks democratic freedoms worldwide. In the circumstances the BUJ, NAJ, DUJ, and APWJF demand that any move to set up a Media Council should be made after full public consultation and consensus with media unions, journalists’ organisations and other stakeholders.
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