To ensure free and fair election, chief electoral officer (CEO), Uttarakhand convened a workshop for media in Dehradun on Thursday. During the workshop, they apprised the media to refrain from publishing paid news.
CEO Radha Raturi said that paid news has been defined by the Press Council of India (PCI) as “any news or analysis appearing in any media (print & electronic) for a price in cash or kind as consideration”. PCI guidelines say: “News should be clearly demarcated from advertisements by printing disclaimers, should be strictly enforced by all publications. As far as news is concerned, it must always carry a credit line and should be set in a typeface that would distinguish it from advertisements.”
Paid news misleads the public and hampers the ability of people to form correct opinions. It causes undue influence on voters and also affects their Right to Information (RTI).
She reminded that paid news is an electoral offence through amendment of Representation of People Act-1951. “Use existing mechanism of expenditure ceiling to curb the menace; partner with stakeholders, including political parties and media to fight the menace and sensitise people on the subject,” she said.
To deal with the menace (paid news), starting with June-2010, the ECI has issued instructions to the State and district officers to scrutinize, identify and report cases of paid news. The commission has appointed a media certification & Monitoring committee (MCMC) at District and state level; it has officers from ministry of Information and Broadcasting and state DIPR; the committee will scrutinize all media within its jurisdiction to identify advertisement in the garb of news and MCMC shall also actively
consider paid news cases referred to it by the expenditure observers.
“We have instructed District Election officer (DEO) to take meeting with political parties as well as media houses to alert them against surrogate advertising and paid news and consequences of violation. Political parties and media houses have been briefed and sensitised in advance at Head quarters. We have written to PCI for support to strengthen the mechanism.”
Once cases are decided as paid news, the print media cases should be sent to ECI for referring it to PCI for action against the concerned media house and electronic media cases are being referred to National broadcasters Association for consideration by national broadcasting standards Authority (NBSA).
CEO takes queries on code violation
Replying to media queries about violation of model code of conduct, CEO Radha Raturi said that as far as Chief Minister Harish Rawat’s residence is concerned that Additional Secretary Estate department has informed that few portion of Bijapur guest house was declared as temporary residence of chief minister on February 26 because some renovation work is in progress in Chief Minister’s residence.
In another query, about Principal Secretary Tourism Umakant Panwar, who had addressed media and claimed that tourism department will organise Char Dham Yatra for senior citizens (completed 65 years), Raturi said that: “We sought explanation from him, then Panwar said that the decision was taken by Cabinet in February so it was not new.” He further said that the press conference was called to explain about Char Dham Yatra, which date was already announced in past.”