News Channels : To Be or Not to Be Censored

No one want censorship let alone censorship of the press media. The controversy is back and this time the UPA Government seems to have a valid reason. The new bill that effectively hands control of the content shown on the News Channels wherein the Govt can block a program that is shown(like a sting operation or a documentary that put the government in bad light) in the name of national security, has been introduced in parliament. It is a facist law similar to those introduced by Hitler. The only difference in this case is that our leaders claim they will use it only in genuine circumstances like war, terrorist attacks, etc. Hmmm...... Wait a minute, didn't Hitler say the same thing. When this act was introduced some months back, it was rejected by the media and the general public alike. Politicians didnt have any reason for introducing this act except the hidden agenda of controlling sting operation. The media on its part made a promise of self regulation. The act was pulled out.

During the Mumbai attacks in November, things changed. During the war of the terrorist there was another war that was simultaneously taking place. This was on TV. Every channel scrambled to get viewers attention and increase their ratings. The banner "Breaking News", meant for extremely important news fact was used, miss used and abused every 3rd minute. When that didnt work, they brought guests in their stdio discussing and speculating what will happen, should happen, could happen etc. And when that got boring they started interviewing the relatives of people trapped in the hotel, effectively giving away their number and location to the terrorist. They then brought the senior reporters on ground zero to repeat the whole thing. They did put the people at risk and may even be responsible for their deaths.Afterall, the terrorist did want publicity. Except for Doordarshan, every other channel behaved irresponsibly and were out of control. By doing so they handed their freedom of reporting on a plate to our politicians to were looking for a good reason to reintroduce their act.

So this time, if the freedom of press is restricted it is the press media and not the politicians to be blamed. Either way, the real victims are the citizens of this country