Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on Thursday interacted with the representatives of digital news publishers and informed them about the responsibilities placed by the new rules on digital news publishers.
“The minister informed that the new rules placed certain responsibilities on digital news publishers. These include adherence to Code of Ethics such as the norms of journalistic conduct framed by the Press Council of India (PCI) and the Programme Code under the Cable Television Network Act (CTNA),” read a statement by the ministry. “Further to redress grievances of citizens, the rules have provided for a three-tier grievance redressal mechanism of which the first and second-tier would be of the digital news publishers and self-regulatory bodies constituted by them,” added the statement.
Javadekar stated that print media and TV channels have digital versions whose content is almost the same as that on the traditional platforms. However, there are contents that appear exclusively on the digital platform. Accordingly, the rules seek to cover the news on digital media so as to bring them at par with the traditional media.
“The participants, while welcoming the new rules stated that TV and news print media, have been following the laid down norms of the Cable Television Network Act and the Press Council Act for a very long time. Further for publishing the digital versions the publishers do follow the existing norms of the traditional platforms. They felt that they should be treated differently than those news publishers who are only on the digital platform,” it further said.