In the recently concluded Assembly elections, the Election Commission detected several cases of paid news, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said on Friday at a function. “Special observers were appointed to check the menace of paid news in the recent Assembly elections as well as in the elections in Tamil Nadu earlier. Some pink papers (business newspapers) have also been reported to have indulged in paid news,” she said.
Paid news refers to the malpractice of political parties paying media house money for favourable coverage.
Soni also drew attention to the large number of players in the electronic and print media, and its impact on news coverage. She emphasised the need to set standards for media training schools — or the “media shops”, as she called them — which have mushroomed in the country and are doling out diplomas that are not recognised. “I wrote to the human resource development minister (Kapil Sibal). A group was formed and it was in the process of laying down some ground rules for media schools,” Soni said.
Lauding the standards set by the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Soni said four more branches of the institute were being set up in the country, after the ones in New Delhi and Dhenkanal in Orissa. “Two such institutes — one in Aizawl (Mizoram) and the other in Amravati in Vidarbha — have already opened their classes and are functioning from temporary buildings. Two more are coming up, one each in Jammu and Kerala,” said Soni. The government’s plan was to set up a campus in Srinagar but it later settled for Jammu.
Soni was speaking at the Business Standard-Seema Nazareth Award for Excellence in Print Journalism 2011 function. The award was presented to Indulekha Aravind, principal feature writer with Business Standard. The citation for the award recognised “the high quality of Aravind’s reports on a wide range of subjects.” Aravind, the citation said, “has shown an evolved sense of what makes for good news features in a social context, has a sound analytical perspective on issues, and writes in an engaging manner.”
The award, given every year to a journalist under 30 years, also carries a cash prize of Rs 50,000 and a silver pen. Aravind, who is based in Bangalore, is the 13th recipient of the award, instituted by Business Standard and the Nazareth family in memory of Seema Nazareth, a young Business Standard journalist who died on March 18, 1999.
