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Impact of Paid News on the Election process

Dated: September 29, 2018

Media plays a key role in ensuring a free and fair election in a democratic country.  After independence, the role of media in elections, whichever it might be, has been of great importance. India being the largest democracy in the world has experienced a evolution in the electoral practises. The Election Commission of India is an independent body to conduct elections at national and regional levels, and marvels in the task of conducting free and fair elections on a mass scale. The Election Commission has improved the election process by taking up reforms, introducing codes of conduct for the candidates and political parties, and ensuring equal opportunities for all candidates in the election fray. Media plays the role of watchdog if democracy enjoys unlimited access to the internet and without major regulations imposed upon their operation. The media by the virtue of this power collects data, news, human development statistics, and work done by the candidates and makes it available to the public. It exposes all kinds of injustices and inequalities and safeguards the rights of the people thereby. The Election Commission has also worked closely with the media network so as to keep a check on the malpractices, checking criminalisation of politics, computerisation of electoral rolls, providing electors with photo identity cards, simplifying the procedure for maintenance of accounts and a variety of measures for strict compliance of the Model Code of Conduct. The media has played a very important role in Indian elections. It contributes a lot to the opinion formation of the majority of the public in India. So as to say it on short, the overall aim of the media is to keep an eye on the happening and report it to the public and providing information to the electorate about the political parties, their programmes and candidates.

Nowadays due to the advent of the TV and mobile phones political parties and candidates focus more on the television and other social networking websites to  seek media exposure. Moreover, in case of government owned public broadcasts election statements of all the parties and the candidates have to be broadcasted on an equal basis. While there exists such a regulation for the public broadcasts by the government owned functionaries, there is no regulation as such on the private media it is widely misused, and hence they prefer to broadcast the statement of the parties and candidates they prefer. Most of the air time and space is provided by the media to the candidate they prefer. It should be ensured that all the parties and the candidates get equal time and equal treatment. Due to the competition the nature of media has changed and so have the styles of presentation have changed. Time slots in news channels and space in newspaper is sold to the individuals to publish or broadcast favourable reports or interviews under the garb of news, paving way for a new phenomenon of “paid news”. This practise is a growing concern and a threat to the institutions of democracy, media and polity.

Paid News can be defined as “Any news or analysis appearing in anymedia (Print & Electronic) for a price in cash or kind as consideration”

Paid news provides scope to publish or telecast an advertisement or report of his/her (candidates) work by pronouncing his or her achievements and thereby increasing the chances of winning and popularity levels during the campaign. The advertisement normally appears in the form of news along with the dateline and credit like any other news story on TV, thus misleading the reader or viewer into believing that it is a news story produced by the local correspondent. This kind of news has been considered a serious malpractice since it deceives the  citizens, not letting them know that the news is, in fact, an advertisement.  This provides the wealthier candidates an advantage over the others.

The Press Council of India was  set  up  by  Parliament  as  a  statutory,  quasi judicial  body  “for  the  purpose of  preserving  the  freedom  of  the  Press  and of  maintaining  and  improving  the  standards  of  newspapers  and  news agencies  in  India.”  However,  it  has  been  entrusted  with  only limited powers  to  admonish,  reprimand  and  pass  strictures.  It cannot  penalise  the errant  or  those  found  guilty  of  malpractices.  Besides,  the  Council’s mandate  does  not  extend  beyond  the  print  medium.

The  Union  and  state  elections  are  regulated  by  the  provisions  of  the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The main purpose of this Act is to ensure free and fair elections in the country. Therefore, since election-time “paid  news”  undermines  free  and  fair  elections,  it  is  recommended  that Section  123  of  the  Representation  of  the  People  Act,  1951,  should  be suitably amended so as to declare any payment for the publication of news as  a  corrupt  practice  or  an  “electoral  malpractice”  and  should  be  made  a punishable offence.

To read more about the impact of corruption on

Source  : - http://presscouncil.nic.in/oldwebsite/councilreport.pdf