New Delhi : The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) urging the government to withdraw its show cause notices issued against three News channels for their coverage related to Yakub Hanging aid the matter should be instead referred to News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA).
Expressing its concern over the matter, the NBA said that since the government has said it believes in independence of media, it should refer the matter to NBSA, which is a self-regulatory mechanism set up by the broadcasters.
In a statement released here, the NBA — a body comprising leading TV news channels — said that it is “deeply concerned” at the show cause notices issued to three channels NDTV 24×7/NDTV India, Aajtak and ABP News.
The statement also stated: “Since the present Government has gone on record to state that it believes the media should be independent, without any government interference and it should self regulate itself, NBA urges the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to withdraw the show cause notices issued and refer them to the New Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), which would consider them under its regulations.”
The NBSA is a self regulatory mechanism set up by the news broadcasting industry with former Supreme Court judge R V Raveendran as its Chairperson.
MIB has given 15 days’ time to these channels to give their reply as to why action shouldn’t be taken against them.
Meanwhile, the Broadcast Editors’ Association (BEA) also condemned the show cause notice issued by the MIB. NDTV carried the statements by the BEA on their portal, wherein they’ve called the Government’s move as an ‘Assault on freedom of speech’.
Unhappy with the Yakub Hanging Coverage by three leading news broadcaster NDTV, Aajtak and ABP News, the I&B Ministry has issued show-cause notice to them, asking why action should not be taken against them.
The Ministry had felt that some parts of the coverage by these news channels were inappropriate following which they have been asked to explain how their coverage does not violate the sections of the Programme Code.
