TV channels face action from NBDSA over code of ethics violation

A few TV channels have been penalised for their news shows by the News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) as per reports.

Activist Indrajeet Ghorpade had earlier pointed out inaccuracies and lack of impartiality, neutrality, objectivity as per the Code of Ethics & Broadcasting Standards. The NBDSA has taken action basis this.

The body also noticed violations of policies regarding hate speech, running programs with anchors, and reporting of situations without the use of communal narratives.

“Programmes that target a whole community for the actions of a small number of people, however, ought to be avoided,” the NBDSA said.

“On a perusal of the impugned broadcast, it appears that at the very beginning of the broadcast, the anchor has concluded that men from a certain community lured women from another community by hiding their religious identity and then committed violence or murders against such women and every such violence or murder committed on women of a certain community related to love jihad’,” the NBDSA further noticed and said.

“This is evident from the questions raised and statements made by the anchor during the impugned broadcast. When some of the panellists expressed their concerns regarding the communal angle being given to such alleged incidents and regarding selective cases of violence against women where the perpetrator belonged to a particular community, the anchor shouted them down and did not allow them to express their views,” the body added.

Instances where boys from a certain community married Hindu girls, the NBDSA noticed that, “Some such instances should not lead to making generalised statements regarding inter-faith marriages by giving it a communal colour. Every citizen, from whichever religion, has a right to marry a person of his/her choice, irrespective of the religion to which he/she belongs.” StoryBoard18