Journalists can lose accreditation if they act against national security: PIB
According to the Press Information Bureau’s new rules, mediapersons could lose accreditation if they act in a manner “prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India”
NEW DELHI: Journalists could lose accreditation if they act in a manner “prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement of an offence”, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) said in its new rules notified on Monday.
There are over 2,400 journalists accredited with the PIB, an agency under the Union information and broadcasting ministry.
The rules outline 10 conditions for the loss of accreditation. They include submission of fraudulent documents or use of the accreditation for non-journalistic activities. Accreditation can also be revoked if a journalist is charged with a “serious cognisable offence”. The rules prohibit journalists from mentioning “accredited to the government of India” on social media.
Journalists working for digital media news publishers, which are not aggregators and have shared their details with the ministry under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, will now be eligible for accreditation.
They should have at least five years of experience for accreditation. A website must be at least one year old and have at least one million to five million unique views over the preceding six months to get one journalist accredited. Websites with over 10 million views are eligible for four accreditations. They will have to submit an average monthly unique visitor count of the last six months certified by the approved empanelled auditors
The accreditation guidelines were last amended in September 2012. They said if an applicant or a media organisation is found to have supplied false, fraudulent, or forged information, documents, its representative “shall be debarred from accreditation up to a maximum of five years but not less than two years”.
