Answerable to the House?

IN Media Watch Briefs | 28/02/2012

On Monday (Feb 27), journalists in Jammu boycotted the assembly and protested against the J&K Assembly Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone's assertion that the media was answerable to the legislature. According to reports, the speaker said, “Everybody is answerable to this house” and later repeated " they (media) are under my control” when a PDP legislator suggested that they were answerable to the Press Council of India. The context was a discussion on the National Conference demand that journalists reveal their source for a particular corruption report.

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The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.                   

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.                 

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