I&B guidelines on media coverage soon

The information and broadcasting ministry will soon issue guidelines to all state governments and Central ministries on providing information to the media during incidents like the Mumbai terror attacks, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 11, 2009, 01:12:55 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The information and broadcasting ministry will soon issue guidelines to all state governments and Central ministries on providing information to the media during incidents like the Mumbai terror attacks, even as media organisations are opposed to such a mechanism.

The guidelines will also advise government departments on pictures and videos to be provided to media in cases where access cannot be given as it may jeopardise the operation of the security forces.

The guidelines will cover incidents of terror, communal riots, hijacking, hostage situations and incidents that are perceived to be a threat to national security.

Expected to be circulated to all government departments by end-January, the guidelines will also specify the role of the Press Information Bureau during crisis situations, a ministry official, who did not wish to be quoted, said.

“Although we are not defining national emergencies, the guidelines will cover all incidents that can have national ramifications,” the official said, adding that the ministry would make it mandatory for television channels to carry government-provided feed during such emergencies. A cabinet note in this regard has already been circulated.

According to the guidelines, each government department will identify an official, who will act as a nodal point for collecting and disseminating information. During the Mumbai attacks, it was found that the entire police force was dealing with the situation and there was no one to respond to media queries.

The guidelines, being prepared in consultation with the Cabinet Secretariat and the Ministry of External Affairs, will also prescribe the dos and don’ts for providing information.

“One of our key concerns is that contrary views should not emerge in the media,” the official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.