Press freedom 2012

IN Media Watch Briefs | 03/05/2012

A new report by Freedom House highlights poor performance in South Asian media. The report states that for the first time in eight years, global media freedom did not experience an overall decline. However, it says that "due to downgrades in some previously free countries, the percentage of the world's population living in societies with a fully free press has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade." The report states that Burma made significant advances due to a broad political opening, and numerical improvements in press freedom were seen in Nepal as well. But these were balanced by "declines" in press freedom in India and Pakistan.

 

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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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