Government has amended the Guidelines for Accreditation of Journalists

[Hindustani78]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...e-withdrawn/article23423454.ece?homepage=true

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday has directed that the press release regarding ‘fake news’ be withdrawn, and that the matter should only be addressed in the Press Council of India.

- The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting headed by Union Minister Smriti Irani had on Monday amended the guidelines for accreditation of journalists. Accreditation of a journalist (both television and print) can be cancelled/annulled if the news reported by them is found to be “fake,” said the Ministry. “Noticing the increasing instances of fake news in various mediums including print and electronic media, the Government has amended the Guidelines for Accreditation of Journalists," a press note from the Ministry had said.

Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Sunday questioned the government’s attempt to check fake news, asking whether it was aimed at preventing journalists from reporting news uncomfortable to the establishment.

“I appreciate the attempt to control fake news but few questions for my understanding: 1. What is guarantee that these rules will not be misused to harass honest reporters? 2. Who is going to decide what constitutes fake news? 3. Is it not possible that motivated complaints will be filed to suspend accreditation until enquiry is on? 4. What is guarantee that these guidelines will check fake news or is it an attempt to prevent genuine reporters from reporting news uncomfortable to establishment?” Mr. Patel asked on Twitter.

- Many senior journalists too termed the government’s action an attack on the freedom of the press.

- However, Ms. Irani on Tuesday tweeted, “PIB Accreditation Guidelines asking Press Council of India & News Broadcasters Association to define & act against ‘fake news’ have generated debate. Several journalists & organisations have reached out giving positive suggestions regarding the same.”

“.@MIB_India is more than happy to engage with journalist body or organisation/s wanting to give suggestions so that together we can fight the menace of ‘fake news’ & uphold ethical journalism. Interested journalists and/or organisations may feel free to meet me at @MIB_India,” she added.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Typical heavy-handed Smriti Irani move, correctly withdrawn by the PM, and referred to the body responsible.

 

[Kdpreddy]

Master stroke by BJP.

In one move they made sure that no journalist will get harassed by any govt by fake news - ala Hegde in Karnataka.

Ahmad patel and co crying rovers will soon be crying through all their holes explaining why they arrested a journo in Karnataka.

 

[Hindustani78]

Ministry of Information & Broadcasting
03-April, 2018 13:27 IST
PIB Press release titled “Guidelines for accreditation of Journalists amended to regulate Fake News” stands withdrawn

PIB Press release titled “Guidelines for Accreditation of Journalists amended to regulate Fake News” issued on 02 April 2018 stands withdrawn.

**********

Ministry of Information & Broadcasting
02-April, 2018 21:03 IST
Guidelines for Accreditation of Journalists Amended to Regulate Fake News

PIB Press release titled “Guidelines for accreditation of Journalists amended to regulate Fake News” stands withdrawn

Noticing the increasing instances of fake news in various mediums including print and electronic media, the Government has amended the Guidelines for Accreditation of Journalists. Now on receiving any complaints of such instances of fake news, the same would get referred to the Press Council of India (PCI) if it pertains to print media & to News Broadcasters Association (NBA) if it relates to electronic media, for determination of the news item being fake or not.

Determination is expected to be completed within 15 days by these regulating agencies. Once the complaint is registered for determination of fake news, the correspondent/journalist whoever created and/or propagated the fake news will, if accredited, have the accreditation suspended till such time the determination regarding the fake news is made by the regulating agencies mentioned above.

The Accreditation Committee of the PIB which consists of representative of both PCI and NBA shall be invariably be reached out to for validating any accreditation request of any news media agency. While any confirmation of publication or telecast of fake news having been confirmed by any of these agencies, the accreditation shall be suspended for a period of 6 months in the first violation and for one year in the case of 2 nd violation and in the event of 3rd violation it would be cancelled permanently.

While examining the requests seeking accreditation, the regulatory agencies will examine whether the `Norms of Journalistic Conduct’ and `Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Standards’ prescribed by the PCI and NBA respectively are adhered to by the journalists as part of their functioning. It would be obligatory for journalists to abide by these guidelines.


***

 

[srshkmr]

So PM withdrew this ?

 

[Hindustani78]

Here its about Professional Journalism which is about safeguarding the Constitution of Republic of India but the fake Journalism is more about damaging the nationhood and directly helping enemies of Republic of India.

 

[Hindustani78]

The Minister of State for Youth Affairs & Sports and Information & Broadcasting (I/C), Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore interacting with the Journalists/Editors from Russia, in New Delhi on September 17, 2018.

The Minister of State for Youth Affairs & Sports and Information & Broadcasting (I/C), Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore interacting with the Journalists/Editors from Russia, in New Delhi on September 17, 2018.

The Russian editors/journalists meeting the Union Minister for Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu as part of familiarization programme, in New Delhi on September 18, 2018.

 

[Hindustani78]

The Hindu has been adapting to changing times, facing and overcoming a multitude of challenges, earning the trust and affection of millions of people across the country, and flourishing. | Photo Credit: R. Ragu

https://www.thehindu.com/specials/thehindu-at-140/140-years-and-counting/article24986739.ece

From its modest beginnings in 1878, The Hindu has come a long way — and is poised to advance in the face of new challenges, its chief asset being its integrity combined with the public trust earned over the decades.

When The Hindu launched itself on September 20, 1878 on the strength of nothing but the ardent patriotism and commitment to progressive social reform of six young men who had managed to raise a rupee and three-quarters as seed capital, nothing seemed guaranteed, least of all longevity. In fact, the founding editorial titled ‘Ourselves’, which is reproduced in this commemorative supplement, sounded a mixed note. It balanced clarity of public purpose — the pursuit of ‘fairness and justice’, the promotion of harmony and unity among an unfree people, the observance of ‘the strictest neutrality’ when it came to religion and the interests and demands of religious communities in a highly diverse society — with humility and diffidence about the outcome.

Around that time The Hindu was only one among dozens of newspapers that had launched themselves across undivided India within the freedom movement tradition, in contrast to the press owned and edited by Europeans that stood on the side of the British imperialist Raj. But unlike virtually all its like-minded contemporaries from that historical era, The Hindu has lasted the course, adapting to changing times, facing and overcoming a multitude of challenges, earning the trust and affection of millions of people across the country, and flourishing — thanks, above all, I believe to its fealty to the founding values, which have been contemporised in the Code of Editorial Values as well as the Code of Business Values adopted by the organisation in recent times.

Today the press, and the news media in general, across the developed world are perceived to be in crisis. Journalism, as we know it, is being described, obviously with some exaggeration, as ‘disintegrating’, ‘collapsing’, in ‘meltdown’. Its core values have come under assault and pressure from a combination of social, political, economic, and technological forces.

There is a sense, even within the profession, that news and the business model that sustains news have been ‘broken’. As a just-out book on the state of journalism and the need to remake it by Alan Rusbridger, former Editor of The Guardian, puts it, we are now ‘up to our necks in a seething, ever churning ocean of information, some of it true, much of it wrong’, there is ‘too much false news, not enough reliable news’, and ‘there might soon be entire communities without news. Or without news they could trust.’

Fortunately, in contrast to its general state in the developed world, the press as an industry is still in growth mode in India. But that does not mean the state of journalism is in good health, far from it. Freedom of expression, and as part of this, press freedom, has come under stress, pressure, assault, some would say siege, in India. The country ranked 138th among 180 countries figuring in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), a Paris-based independent organisation that dedicates itself to freedom of information. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has, after careful enquiry and strict verification, documented the work-related killing of 48 journalists in India, including 34 murdered ‘in retribution for, or to prevent news coverage and commentary’, since 1992. India is one of a dozen countries figuring year after year in the CPJ’s Global Impunity Index where journalists are murdered, the cases remain unsolved, and the killers go free.

And India is very much integrated in the global landscape of false and fake news, much of it divisive, toxic, and dangerous to democracy and to the health of society — a threat magnified a billion-fold by the business models, algorithms, bots, filter bubbles, echo chambers, and so forth created by the Internet giants, the so-called technology companies, chiefly Facebook and Alphabet, that exercise hegemony, refuse to accept accountability, and increasingly contribute to a news and socio-political landscape that begins to resemble a dystopia.

Under such fraught and challenging circumstances, the need to strategise, renovate, remake journalism and centre-stage its core principles of truth-telling, freedom and independence, fairness and justice, humaneness, and working for the public good stands out as a top national and patriotic priority.

The Hindu, with its priceless asset of public trust earned over 140 years during which the world changed beyond human imagination, re-commits itself to this mission.

N. Ram is the Chairman of The Hindu Publishing Group

 

[Hindustani78]

The Hindu was founded in 1878 to protest against the British outcry when T. Muthuswamy Iyer became the first Indian to grace the bench of the Madras High Court. In 1906, the paper was in the forefront, demanding the arrest of Sir George Gough Arbuthnot, when the banking firm of Arbuthnot & Co. failed, taking with it the savings of thousands in the Madras Presidency. Most British-backed papers soft-pedalled the matter.

The Hindu was firmly in support of the freedom movement, particularly of the Gandhian variety. It strongly condemned regimes of repression everywhere, be it in other parts of the world, or in the Princely States of India. In those days, if you were in the government, you could not take a decision without getting an earful from

Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister
Congratulations and my best wishes to The Hindu on turning 140 years on September 20, 2018.

Between its birth in 1878 and India’s Nation integration in 1947, the newspaper had emerged as a strong voice for India’s freedom and the legitimate rights of the people. It has remained steadfast to its core values of fairness and accuracy, the two most important ingredients for the practice of journalism.

The Hindu has a strong southern presence but it is a name that is known all over the country for its commitment towards impartial and value-based journalism.

The Hindu has today emerged as one of the country’s most credible and respected newspapers, one that is taken seriously by those in governance and by people across the political spectrum.

I wish The Hindu greater success in the years to come.

Rahul Gandhi, Congress president


The story of The Hindu is a story of courageous, truthful journalism.

In the 19th century, when mass agitations were yet to become a mainstay of the struggle against the colonial rule in India, the efforts that The Hindu made towards consolidating nationalist sentiment shall always be remembered by the people of India. So much has happened since then. The world has changed. The sanctity of truth, however, remains.

Building on the solid foundation of truth and courage, The Hindu has survived the test of time, by constantly adapting and re-inventing itself to stay relevant, even as many other newspapers in India and around the world have fallen to the relentless onslaught of TV news and more recently the digital news revolution.

I would like to congratulate and offer my best wishes to The Hindu for completing One Hundred and Forty years in the service of the nation. May the newspaper grow from strength to strength and continue to be a beacon of fearless, truthful journalism in the years to come.

 

[Hindustani78]

N. Ravi, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, elected PTI chairman
PTI
New Delhi, September 29, 2018 16:33 IST
Updated: September 29, 2018 16:45 IST
https://www.thehindu.com/news/natio...indu-elected-pti-chairman/article25081126.ece

Mr. Ravi, 70, succeeds Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of the Express Group.

N. Ravi, the publisher of The Hindu Group of Newspapers, and Vijay Kumar Chopra, the chief editor of Punjab Kesari Group of newspapers, were on Saturday unanimously elected Chairman and Vice Chairman of Press Trust of India (PTI), the country’s largest news agency.

Mr. Ravi, 70, succeeds Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of the Express Group.

The elections took place at a meeting of PTI’s Board of Directors following the Company’s 70th Annual General Meeting in New Delhi.

“In the incoming Chairman... we have been blessed with a person who brings with him formidable intellect, foresight, knowledge and wisdom,” Mr. Goenka said. “I am certain that he will enhance PTI’s reputation and ensure its financial viability.”

He noted that the company posted a revenue of ₹172.2 crore during 2017-18, against ₹172.8 crore the previous year.

Mr. Ravi, an award-winning journalist with a distinguished career in India and the U.S., is also currently Chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Chennai centre. He has also been the Chairman of the India Chapter of the International Press Institute and member of the Executive Board of the International Press Institute, Vienna.

He was president of the Editors’ Guild of India as well as a member of the government’s National Integration Council from 2006 to 2008.

The Chennai-based Mr. Ravi has a Master’s degree in economics and a degree in law, and has won several academic awards including a gold medal in constitutional and international law.

He was a Fellow at the Harvard Law School in 2000 and Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in 2004. In 2013, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University.

He joined The Hindu in 1972, where he served as reporter, leader writer, Washington correspondent, Deputy Editor and Associate Editor. He was Editor from 1991 to 2011 and Editor-in-Chief from October 2013 to January 2015.

Mr. Ravi has covered several international conferences and travelled with prime ministers and presidents to cover international summits. His special areas of interest and writing include constitutional and political issues, economic policy, international economy, free speech and human rights, and India-U.S. relations.

He is the recipient of several professional awards, including the G.K. Reddy Memorial Award and BREAD Role Model Award, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.

Mr. Chopra’s Punjab Kesari Group publishes the Hindi language Punjab Kesari, the Jagbani in Punjabi and the Hind Samachar in Urdu, from eight locations in Punjab, Haryana and Jammu.

The 86-year-old Mr. Chopra, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 1990 for literature and education, was Chairman of PTI twice before in 2001 and 2009.

Besides Mr. Ravi, Mr. Chopra and Mr. Goenka, the other members of the PTI Board are Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Dainik Jagran), K.N. Shanth Kumar (Deccan Herald), Vineet Jain (Times of India), Aveek Kumar Sarkar (Anand Bazar Patrika), M.P. Veerendra Kumar (Mathrubhumi), R. Lakshmipathy (Dinamalar), Hormusji N. Cama (Bombay Samachar), Justice R.C. Lahoti, Prof. Deepak Nayyar, Shyam Saran and J.F. Pochkhanawalla.