Hyderabad, June 1 : Speakers at a national round table Wednesday agreed on the need for regulation of the media but differed on who should draw the line.
Top journalists and Minister for Information and Broadcasting S. Jaipal Reddy felt there should be regulation for media, especially the electronic media, in view of the maddening competition but differed on who should make such the regulation.
The editors felt such regulation should come from within the media.
The round table - "Should there be a Lakshman Rekha for News Media?" - was organised by the Andhra Pradesh Press Academy and the Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi, and also addressed by human rights activists and representatives of political parties.
Reddy said a regulatory authority for TV channels would be set up soon but news and current affairs content would not come under its purview.
"The regulatory authority will be completely autonomous and quasi-judicial, which will take up the social concerns of violence, vulgarity and obscenity in the TV programmes," he said.
Columnist Kuldip Nayar said he would challenge such a body in court as it would be against the constitution and would curb the liberty of the media and freedom of expression.
M.J. Akbar, President of Editors' Guild, described Indian journalism as "Sita", who was abducted by the owners of newspapers. He said that like Sita, the Indian media's credibility was being questioned.
Akbar listed some of the "deadly sins" of the media as bias, pomposity of the editors, boredom or failure to keep a balance between fun and seriousness, triumph of trivia, news space being on sale and ignorance of journalists.
Justice G.N. Ray, chairman of the Press Council of India, opposed any regulation imposed by the government but also criticised the media for not doing any thing to come up with self-regulation.
TV journalist Rajdeep Sardesai said that the 'Laksham Rekha' would have to be drawn jointly by bodies like the Press Council of India, the Editors Guild and the government on the lines of the British model.
Lashing out at TV channels for trivialising news, he said they were only bothered about TRPs.
Sardesai said some channels were showing utter insensitivity towards victims of natural calamities, accidents or terrorist attacks in their competition for "human interest stories".
Ramoji Rao, chairman of the Eenadu Group, said that a broad framework was already in the constitution for self-regulation by the media and it should itself draw the line.
