Different standards

IN Media Watch Briefs | 02/02/2012

Funny how the media becomes a champion of free speech when it wants to and wants to  curtail  free speech when it suits its ideology. While Times Now did  extensive coverage on the unfair ban on  Rushdie to visit JLF,  on another programme the channel's editor, Arnab Goswami moderated a debate about the ABVP ban on Sanjay Kak's film on Kashmir  being shown at a college in Pune. He asked  another filmmaker if he had obtained a censor certificate before putting his film on the web. The filmmaker said a censor certificate was not needed to screen to private audiences or to stream live on video.  Goswami quickly retracted::"We must remind ourselves that we are not the police nor the Censor Board"!
 

Subscribe To The Newsletter
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.                 

View More