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'The media is sold out!' – a phrase journalists often hear while doing their job. While covering the on-going famers' protests on Delhi's borders, several journalists experienced a strong push back as protesters felt that a lot of media reports about the protests were biased in favour of the central government. When sections of the media labelled them as 'Khalistani terrorists', protestors alleged it was at the behest of the government.
So, is there any truth to the assertion that the government does try to 'control' the media? And are press advertisements a popular financial 'lever' used by governments to influence media?
The simple answer, is yes. And it has a lot to do with the vast amount of money that Governments, both Central and State, spend on advertising across all forms of media, particularly print and electronic.
While answering to a written question by a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, the Bureau of Communication (BOC) informed about the expenditure incurred by Central Ministries on the newspaper advertisements in three Financial Years (FY) are:
In FY 2017-18 - Rs 462.22 crore
In FY 2018-19 - Rs 301.03 crore
In FY 2019-20 - Rs 128.96 crore
But, whose money is this, being used to promote government schemes and policies? It is your money, the taxpayers' money. There is no such thing as 'government funded', it is only 'taxpayers money funded'.
Like all government spending, it is understandable that taxpayers have no role in deciding how money should be spent on advertising, but what about transparency? At present, while there are guidelines, it seems there is little or no actual transparency from the government on how it allocates advertisements to print and electronic media.
The Union Ministry for Information & Broadcasting laid down new rules in 2020 for sanctioning advertisements to media houses. The Print Media Advertisement Policy (2020) has clear procedures for empanelment of newspapers, advertising rates, payment of bills and penalties. Government ads are now routed through the Bureau of Communication.
So, does this new policy cover the loopholes which existed in the previous policy?
If one takes a close look at the 'payment and bills' section of The Print Media Advertisement Policy (2020), one can see just how the new rules are still vague.
This section clearly states that 'every publication has to submit bills with supportive documents within 30 days of the publication of the advertisement and 'BOC may levy a fine for late submission of bills'.
But are there equally clear rules about making payments to publications?
Delay in release of payment is also a means to control media, says Sircar.
An RTI response received by law student Aniket Gaurav on 28 June 2021 from the I&B Ministry, reveals that the Centre owes over Rs 147 crore to various print media outlets as payments for government ads. The oldest bill is dated 2004.
With regard to electronic media, the Ministry said a full list of the number of outstanding bills is not readily available.
It's also time for the media to evolve its revenue generation models and reduce dependency on government ads, so that they can continue with fair journalism, Sekhri told The Quint.
In June 2018, the Congress' leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, in a debate in Parliament, accused the Narendra Modi government of stopping government ads to reputed newspapers such as The Hindu, The Times of India and The Telegraph for being critical of the government in their reportage.
In April 2020, the Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Sonia Gandhi, in a letter to PM Narendra Modi, proposed complete ban of media advertising by the government for two years to generate financial resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
Sonia Gandhi's proposal was criticised by some big newspapers.
Mustafa also told The Quint that the bigger the media house, the greater is their expectation of ads from the government. She says there is a need to formulate a stringent guideline on allocation of government ads, so that those in power cannot freely favour those who 'toe the government line', and taking away revenue from who don't.
Sekhri also points out how selective media organisations that toe the government's line are getting huge chunks of advertisements.
Transparency is the only solution to this persisting issue, said Sircar. "A little transparency will make those who manipulate run to the toilet", he added.
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