Some Media Organizations
The Press Council
of India
The practice of instituting
a Press Council to safeguard the interests of a free Press was first initiated
by Sweden India
The Press Council
of India is a statutory body, and not a voluntary organization as in the U.K.
This representative
body has the power to warn, admonish and censure any editor or realist who
flouts the standard of journalistic ethics or public taste. It has the power of
a Civil Court
The Indian Press
Council has, besides, ‘not only to help newspapers and news agencies to
maintain independence, but also to build up principles for maintenance of high
standards of the journalistic profession with a stress on public taste , and
fostering a due sense of right and responsibilities of citizenship. It is for
the Press council to keep under review all developments likely to restrict the
supply and dissemination of news of public interest, including the question of
concentration of ownership of newspapers and news agencies, they may affect the
freedom of the Press.
In June 1980, the
Council decided to recommend to the central Government the need to amend the
Press Council Act, 1978 so as to empower it to take penal action against
defaulting newspapers ‘which are indicted or censured, for infringement of
journalistic ethics. The action suggested against newspapers was cessation of
Central and State Government advertisements; and against journalists and
editors, the withdrawal of accreditation facilities. The Second Press
Commission recommended the arming of the Press Council with power to improve
penalties but Editors’ guild has not approved the move.
Audit Bureau of Circulation LTD (ABC)
The ABC is private
body whose members are 252 regional and national publishers, and 203 leading
advertisers, news agencies, and advertising agencies. It surveys the
circulation of publication in English, Hindi and 12reginal languages, in more
than 50 major Indian towns.
ABC carries out
circulation surveys on a regular basis and issues ‘Certificates of Net Paid
Circulation’ every six months. It has a very high reputation for reliability
and impartiality, and is therefore quoted with authority. Like the NRS, ABC too
is urban-oriented there are nearly ninety percent of publications that are not
members of the ABC. Hardly 20 of the English weeklies, and an equal number of
the Hindi dillies are enrolled as members. Yet it is contended by advertisers,
that ABC covers 75 % of the Indian daily Press. The fact is that good number of
members do not submit their circulation figures for verification. ‘Not
received’ (NR) us a familiar feature in the auditor’s reports.
Registrar of Newspapers for India
Established on July
1, 1956, the RNI functions as a central Government body (under the Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting) responsible for the compilation of a Register
giving particulars like ownership and circulation of all newspapers published
in India India
Sources of News: New Agencies
A news agency,
according to a UNESCO definition is “ an
undertaking whose principle objective, whatever its legal from, is to
gather news and news martial of which
the sole purpose is to express or present fact, and to distribute this
to group of news enterprises, and in
exceptional circumstances to private individuals, with a view to providing them with as complete and
impartial a news service as possible against payment, and under conditions
compatible with business laws and usage.’ in the mid - 1990s. however, that definition of a news
agency sounds rather dated, transnational agencies today are large corporations
making their profits largely from the sale of financial and market data
provided to clients around the world; the commercial clients far outnumber news
enterprises. Further, the kind of ‘ facts‘ , they present are highly selective,
of primary interstate the world of business and commerce in the West, and thus
are in no way ‘ complete’ and impartial’. The Service of the agencies provided
are not just text, but also relate to audio, video, photography and all kinds
of data. The business of Some national agencies too has grown and expended
through diversification
The major
transnational news agencies continue to be ‘the big four’: Returners of
Britain, AP (associated Press) of the United
States of America , AFP (Agence France Press), and UPI
(United Press International) of the United States ,
though the last has lost much of its international market since the late
eighties, except in South America . Other large
transitional news agencies include DPA (Deutsche Press Agentur) of Germany , Itar – Tass of Russia, and MENA (middle
east new agency ) of Egypt
Regional ‘news
exchanges’ have been started to counter the dominance of the ‘big four’. These
include OPECNA the news agency of the OPEC countries; the Non-Aligned News
Agency Pool (NANAP); and Deterrin, the transnational news agency founded by
both developed and developing countries IPS and operated by all participating
Countries. Two new exchanges served the South American Region : the Accion De
Systemas Information Nacionales (ASIN) and Agency Letinamericana de Informacio
(ALAI ). The Pan African News Agency (PANA)
serves the African Continant , CANA , the
Carribean Region, OANA, the Asia-Pacific region and PACNEWS the Pasific region.
An International news agency established recently, and intrest to Indian news
papers, is the IANS (India Abroad News Services) with its headquarters in New York
On of the world’s
“Alternative” news agency’s the Inter Press Service (IPS), with its
headquarters in Roma. It has bureau in New
Delhi
There are now more
than a hundred news agencies in the world. Around 90 countries have their own
national news agencies while 40 countries do not have any agency at all . News
agencies in 50 out of the 90 countris are directly under the control of the
State , while the remaining 40 are owned and run jointly by newspapers and the
media. Yet few of them are really autonomous, and totally free from Government
and commercial influences.
Development of News Agencies in India
K.C.Roy, an Indian
journalist during the early years of this century, set up the first Indian news
agency called the Press News Bureau (PNB). S. Sadanand established a
nationalistic news agency in the 1930s, known as the Free Press of India
By 1949, the Indian
and Eastern Newspapers Society had started its own agency – the Press Trust of
India (PTI), which purchased Reuters, while UPI still struggled on, providing little or no
competition. In 1958, UPI died a slow death, leaving PTI alone in the field
with a vast countrywide tele printer network, and employing many journalists
and stringers.
United News of India
Before long,
however, United News of India (UNI), a competitive news agency was set up by Dr
B.C.Roy and sponsored by eight national dailies. Within a decade, it could
match the services of PTI in the collection and distribution of news. It now
has correspondents in over 200 Indian towns and cities, and around a hundred
bureaus across the nation. The various services it offers to its over a
thousand subscribers in India (and 30 abroad), include UNIFIN, a finance and
banking service, UNISTOCK, a service for stock exchanges, and UNISCAN, a new
service fed directly into television sets. Besides, it has a national photo
service and supplies computer– designed graphic in ready-to–use form on
economics and other topics. UNI has started a TV wing to provide news features,
news clips and documentaries to Doordarshan.
Press Trust Of India
PTI too has
expanded its services considerably, and has foreign correspondents in new York , Moscow ,
Kathmandu, Colombo , London Australia , Ninon Keizal
Shim bun of Japan Indonesia ,
and YONHAP of South Korea to from a joint venture company to gather and
distribute business news on the industrialized economies of the Asia pacific. PTI is also part of a cooperative agreement
amon 12 news agencies of the Asia–Pacific region for the distribution of
corporate and Government Press releases. In March 1998, speculation was rife
that Dow Jones would tie up with PTI to take on Reuters. At present, the Dow
Jones services are provided by PTI because of Government restorations against
direct distribution to Indian media houses, Dow Jones is reportedly helping PTI
with technical assistance in its modernization plans. PTI also distributes the
general new service of Reuters in India
With development
loans made available by the Central Government, the two national news agencies
have updated technology of news reception and news distribution. Towards the
end of 1978, UNI and PTI stepped into the age of satellite communication,
discarding the outmoded radio – teletype system . They thus began to receive
foreign agency and foreign correspondent reports via satellite, and to
disseminate agency copy using net-worked computers.
Another landmark in
the modernization of the news agencies has been the use of computers for prompt
and in-depth analysis of the Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections since 1980.
This was the first time that news agencies of any developing country had
employed computers to report national election.
While the UNI and
PTI have made a great impact in the distribution of national and international
new in India , they have yet
to tap the interest of many foreign Countries, especially of Asia .
Africa and Latin Amerce in India
Hindi News Agencies
PTI – Bhasha and
UNIVARTA are the Hindi units of the two national news agfencies . until the
1980s, two Hindi news agencies: the Hindustan Samachar and the Samachar Bharati
served the Hindi Press. They were brought under one banner during the emergency
for the ostensible purpose of starting a natonal news agency directly under
Government sponsorship. With the lifting of the emergency however, SAMACHAR –
the label under which the four agencies were merged – broke into its separate
consitiuents again. For all practical purposes SAMACHAR functioned under
Government control. The Janata regime saw it as ‘a deliberate design to make
the news agencies serve as a tool of the ruling party.’ and so restored the
status quo ante from April 14, 1978.
Hindustan Samachar,
India
See Also :
No comments:
Post a Comment