New Delhi : Hundreds of Newspapers publishers and owners held a protest dharana, Yesterday at Jantar Mantar and subsequently took to march towards Parliament against the New Advertising Policy introduced by NDA government.
Newly formed body of Small and Medium Newspapers (SMNs) from various parts of the country –Akhbar Bachao Manch’ (ABM) has organized the Protest Dharna in collaboration with other organization of Small and Medium newspapers. The leaders of ABM said that the new policy has been specially designed and manipulated to finish the small publications and to fill further the kitty of big and influential publishers.
The speakers condemned the new advertising policy of government of India terming it highly tilted towards Big publishing houses and rashly hostile against the small and medium newspapers and print media.
Ahkbar Bachao Manch (ABM) demanded that this new policy should be rolled back immediately. This policy is a conspiracy to eliminate Small & Medium newspapers and to serve the so called ‘Big newspapers.
Publishers and journalists from across the country, including Delhi gathered at the Jantar Mantar to register their protest against the Centre.
Earlier, similar protest sit-ins were orgainzed at Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Bihar, Telengana, Karnataka, Orrissa, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and other big cities of the country.
Similarly, The members of All India Small News Papers Association (AISNA) protested in front of the office of Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP), CGO Complex, here on Tuesday. Shouting slogans and carrying banners, they demanded the government roll back the ‘marking’ system for newspapers under its new Print Media Advertisement Policy which was launched on June 10 this year.
According to the government this policy aims to promote transparency and accountability in the release of its ads, but AISNA claims that this step will ‘stifle’ small and medium newspapers as it limits the granting of advertisements to circulation alone by introduction of a ‘six-point marking criteria.’
Marking System- The marking system is based on six objective criteria with different marks each of them.
- Circulation certified by ABC/ANI- 25 marks
- EPF system for employees – 20 marks
- Number of pages- 20 marks
- Subscription to wire services of PTI/UNI/Hindustan Samachar- 15 marks
- Own printing press- 10 marks
- Annual Subscription payment to PCI- 10 marks
Advertisements shall be released by DAVP on the basis of the marks it obtains based on this criteria and it is this ‘marking’ scheme that is attracting the wrath of AISNA and all other small publishing houses.
The policy has classified Newspaper and Journals into three categories – Small (less than 25,000 copies per publishing day), Medium (25,001-75,000 copies) and Big (over 75,000 copies per publishing day).
