The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has asked television channels not to compromise on “good taste and decency” while reporting cases of accidents, deaths, and violence, including violence against women, children and elderly in manners.
The Ministry on Monday issued detailed advisory to TV channels after noticing several instances of lack of discretion. The Ministry has said that television channels showed dead bodies and blood-spluttered images/videos of injured persons as also instances of violence against women, children and elderly persons.
The advisory has pointed out an instance of repeat-show over several minutes of a teacher brutally beating a child and said no precaution was taken to blur the images.
“It has further highlighted that the manner of reporting such incidents is distasteful and distressing for the audience,” the Ministry has said.
The advisory has highlighted the impact such reporting has on various audiences. It has stated that such reports can also have an adverse
psychological impact on the children.
“There is also a crucial issue of invasion of privacy which could be potentially maligning and defamatory, the advisory has underlined. Television, being a platform usually watched by families in households with people from all cohorts — old aged, middle aged, small children, etc — and with various socio-economic backgrounds, places certain sense of responsibility and discipline among the broadcasters, which have been enshrined in the Programme Code and the Advertising Code,” it said
The Ministry has observed that in most cases the videos are being taken from social media and broadcast without editorial discretion and modifications to ensure compliance and consistency with the Programme Code.
A list of examples of such recently broadcast content is as below:
1. 30.12.2022: Shows the distressing images and videos of a cricketer injured in an accident, without blurring.
2. 28.08.2022: Shows disturbing footage of a man dragging the dead body of a victim and also focusing on the face of the victim with blood splattered around.
3. 06-07-2022: Shows distressing incident in which a teacher can be seen brutally thrashing a 5-year-old boy until he lost consciousness in a coaching classroom in Patna, Bihar. The clip was played without muting it in which painful cries of the child begging for mercy can be heard and was shown for over 09 minutes.
4. 04-06-2022: Report shows the distressing gory images of the dead body of a Punjabi singer without blurring.
5. 25-05-2022: A video shows a disturbing incident of a man brutally beating two minor boys with a stick in Chirang district of Assam. In the video, the man can be seen mercilessly beating boys with sticks. The clip was played without blurring or muting in which the boys’ painful cries are clearly heard.
6. 16-05-2022: An incident about a woman advocate brutally assaulted by her neighbour in Bagalkot district of Karnataka was shown continuously without edits.
7. 04-05-2022: Report showing a man hacking his own sister to death in Rajapalayam, Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu.
8. 01-05-2022: A report shows a man being hung upside down from a tree and brutally thrashed with sticks by five people in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh.
9. 12-04-2022: An accident in which distressing visuals of five dead bodies are continuously shown without blurring.
10. 11-04-2022 : An incident where a man can be seen brutally attacking his 84-year-old mother in Kollam, Kerala, dragging his mother through the yard beating and thrashing her mercilessly shown continuously without blurring for approximately 12 minutes.
11. 07-04-2022: A report on a highly disturbing video of an old man setting his son ablaze in Bengaluru. The unedited footage of the old man lighting a matchstick and throwing it on his son upon which he was engulfed in flames was telecast repeatedly.
12. 22-03-2022: A report about a video of a 14-year-old minor boy being beaten in Morigaon district of Assam, carried without blurring or muting in which the boy can be heard crying and pleading while being beaten mercilessly.
The Ministry has strongly advised all private television channels to attune their systems and practices of reporting incidents of crime, accidents and violence, including death in conformity with the Programme Code.