These are bad times indeed, it seems, for the media. It has been harshly attacked by Justice Markanday Katju (retd), the new Press Council of India chairman, who hit out against journalists, calling them ill-informed and uneducated, and against the electronic media, which he said was partisan. On another front, it faces a government-imposed regulation regime that seeks to curtail its freedom. First, the attack from Katju, as vitriolic as it was unexpected. In a TV interview, Katju spoke of the need for a media council to oversee TV news channels and the print media. In advocating such a council, he wasn’t saying anything that hasn’t been said by his predecessors. In fact, the GoM on the media, too, has been mulling over the feasibility of a media council (see interview). What riled was the way in which Katju, a former Supreme Court judge, made sweeping statements against journalists and decided on his own that self-regulation—through the National Broadcasting Association (NBA)—had failed and was a futile exercise. This has only added to the fears of a restrictive, government-imposed regulatory regime.
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