Govt ready to consider content code to be drafted by broadcasters

New Delhi, Aug 29 (UNI) Succumbing to strong resistance of broadcasters to the proposed content code, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has said it is ready to consider the code to be drafted by the news channel Editors' Guild.

Secretary Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Asha Swaroop said she was not posessive about the draft Broadcasting Bill of which the content code is apart, and was open to completely new proposals, but there has to be some kind of regulation and content norms.

''Though I am not authorised to say that on behalf of the Government, and may be hauled up by the Minister,'' she added in a lighter vein.

She was speaking at a seminar on Broadcasting and Public Responsibility organised by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust last night.

Meanwhile, the Editors' Guild is meeting today, and Editor-in Chief of CNN-IBN Rajdeep Sardesai told UNI the work of drafting the new code may take a month.

Ms Swaroop said the government had to step in to bring some regulation of broadcasting services and its content because the TV channels themselves failed to do that and indulged in practices that were not up to norms.

''We are all the time flooded with complaints from the public about the content of various programmes telecast, so if the government is not to bring in any mechanism to redress these grievances, then who will do it? she sought to know.

In this connection she mentioned a case in which she received a complaint from a person on how he landed in a legal case against him because of incorrect reporting by a news channel.

The Secertary said she would be very happy if the broadcasters came out with their own proposals about the regulation in the industry.

She did not agree with the broadcasters' contention that a regulator appointed by the government cannot be independent.

''After all we have appointed regulators in other sectors like telecom etc and they are acting indepently without any interference by the government,'' Ms Swaroop said.

UNI