Web journalists become eligible for Govt accreditation

New Delhi, Sep 12 (UNI) Web journalists will now be eligible for getting accreditation of the Press Information Bureau of the Government.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which grants accreditation to Indian as well as foreign media persons, today issued new accreditation Guidelines creating the new category.

India has thus become one of the few countries to grant accreditation to web journalists.

The guideliens have been revised keeping in view the changes in media scenario, a Ministry release said here.

Raising the quota for existing media organisations by approximately 50 per cent is one of the major amendments.

One more new category 'Long and Distinguished Service' has been introduced for working journalists of over 65 years of age to acknowledge their long innings and standing in the field of journalism.

Revision of eligibility criteria for electronic media, news agencies and freelance journalists are other important features of the revised accreditation rules.

In case of newspapers, while the requirement of minimum 10,000 circulation copies remains unchanged for being eligible for grant of accreditation, modifications have been brought about in the minimum number of pages.

The guidelines were last reviewed/revised in 1999 and a re-look at the existing provisions and amendments thereto was necessitated due to factors including, super specialisation in various segments of reporting, rise in the number of 24-hour news channels and media organisations branching out in various areas of news dissemination.

The Central Press Accreditation Committee (CPAC) had also unanimously suggested the need for the proposed changes.

UNI NAZ AK RK1940