A month after it faced a barrage of criticism for dropping an interview with Congress leader P Chidambaram, NDTV finds itself flooded with support.
On November 2, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ordered a one-day blackout of its Hindi news channel for allegedly revealing “strategically sensitive information” during its coverage of the terror attack on the Pathankot airbase in January. (The details of the charges against NDTV India and its reply to the ministry are here.)
The blackout has been condemned by the Editors Guild of India which has called it “a direct violation of the freedom of the media”. Several newspapers and websites have published editorials asking the government to take back the ban.
In a statement, NDTV said it was being “singled out”.
“Every channel and newspaper had similar coverage. In fact NDTV's coverage was particularly balanced. After the dark days of the emergency when the press was fettered, it is extraordinary that NDTV is being proceeded against in this manner. NDTV is examining all options in this matter.”
In an interview to Scroll.in, NDTV’s Executive Vice Chairperson KVL Narayan Rao defended the channel’s coverage further. “Whatever we stated was already in the public domain, reported both by television and newspapers,” he said. “First the order says that print is no example, then for TV they say, that's not a mitigating factor. What does that leave you with?”
Rao also spoke about the changes introduced by TV channels since the Mumbai terror attack in 2008, when the coverage gave away information in realtime to the terrorist handlers.
“We have a code of independent regulations and we believe it is that code that should be adhered to,” he said. “I think it is not for governments to be interfering in the media in a democracy.”
Excerpts from the interview:
Is NDTV taking the legal route? Where do things stand?At this point, what has been given as a statement is really the only thing that I'd like to say. We are looking closely at our options, and will respond.
Do you feel the order or process was particularly hostile to you? Why did NDTV state that it was singled out?
If you read the order in some depth, they have mentioned what NDTV's defence is. It clearly says we produced news reports, we stated things that were in other channels, other shows. So that gives rise to the feeling of being singled out.
We don't think we have done anything wrong here. We reported everything as per the law. We feel that it was an unnecessary and a hasty decision, taken without examining everything that we said. If they had looked at it carefully, they would have seen that everything we reported was already in the public domain.
How did the process actually occur? Did it seem clear they were being adverse? There was a show cause notice in January to which we responded. We feel that we responded with all the facts on record. We had a hearing in July, where we went and tried to explain. Then this order seems to follow months later.
How do you respond to the claim that what the NDTV reporter said on air was in violation of the code?
I believe the order is unjustified. There are print reports that came out the previous day, so they have been in the public domain for a full 24 hours before our people said anything. But I don't want to have to rebut every single line of the order.
The order brings up references to the ammunition depot, and specific timely location that could have been actionable intelligence.
I can't go into specifics. That will come up in full when we officially respond to the order. We are looking at it carefully.
We have time and again tried to say that we will come up with our own system of self regulation. We helped create the NBSA [News Broadcasting Standards Authority] and over a period of time the regulations that have come out, have worked, and they have refined the policies. In a way, it has become independent regulation. If you look at what each channel says in its scroll, it says the channel subscribes to the NBSA's code.
I really believe that governments should not be interfering in the way media channels are run. We have created a self regulatory body headed by very eminent people, they should follow that. The government often sends things to the NBSA with what they believe the channel has done, and the NBSA chooses how to respond. How come they did not send this one to the NBSA and decided to deal with it themselves?
My only point is that we have a code of independent regulations and we believe it is that code that should be adhered to, and I think it is not for governments to be interfering in the media in a democracy.
In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks in 2008, there was a lot of conversation about coverage of terrorist incidents. Have channels done enough to change how they deal with them?I think channels have gotten better at dealing with terrorist situations. Various advisories have been issued by the NBSA in dealing with these situations. I think we have fine tuned it quite a lot and everything gets taken care of. The problem with having a law like this is that it is completely subject to all kinds of subjective interpretation and we believe a lot of that has happened in this case.
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