New Delhi : Indian Journalists Union (IJU) expresses serious concern at the Government of Maharashtra‘s decision to set up a media monitoring centre to track news reportage in all the forms of news media including print and digital. IJU opined that such an attempt of the government will have a serious impact on freedom of the press. Such an attempt to regulate media by the government itself is tantamount to making an accused judge as the government itself makes most of the news in the media . Setting up of such a media monitoring centre in the name of controlling the spread of misinformation or bias and false reporting, is nothing but imposing a regime of surveillance and censorship.
According to reports this monitoring centre is to be tasked with observing the news content and classifying it as ‘positive or negative’ towards the government. Making the government sole authority to determine positive and negative news is a grotesque way of silencing criticism. On the other hand such a classification of news as a negative monitoring regime can
be seen as an attempt to profile and target the voices critical towards the government.
IJU recalls that a similar attempt by the union government to amend IT rules to form a Fact Checking Unit (FCU) to identify “fake and false” content against the government on social media platforms, have been struck down by the Bombay High Court. The grounds for striking it down were the infringement of the right to freedom and the fear of a “chilling effect” amounting to censorship.
In a statement IJU President and former member of Press Council of India Geetartha Pathak
and IJU Secretary General Sabina Inderjt also Vice President of International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ) said that the government itself being the arbiter of veracity of news can be seen as a brash conflict of interest.
IJU demands the Maharashtra government to withdraw the decision to set up such s draconian media monitoring centre and appeals the state government to face the criticism of press as well as of citizen including the opposition which will increase accountability of the government and strengthen democracy .
