The press council of India has been established with the object of preserving the freedom of the press and of maintaining and improving the standards of newspaper and news agencies in the country. The council over the years has built up a code of ethics covering aspects of journalism.
The ethics are not imposed on the profession from outside, but are evolved by itself. They have been evolved keeping in view certain fundamental needs of our society vise-a-vise the desired role of the print media.
The fundamental duty and responsibility enjoins on the profession many other moral and ethical obligations, like:
Need to verify from all possible sources the correctness of their stories, particularly libelous and defamatory material, before publication.
Need to exercise utmost caution in reporting communal disturbances, scrupulously avoiding inflammatory material.
While publishing “letters to the editor” or covering proceeding of parliament duty to give a balanced picture, taking views of all sides involved; and
Not to publish unverified, baseless, graceless, misleading or distorted material
Not to condemn anyone unheard
Not to invade a person’s privacy, except in clear public interest
Not to steal another person’s writing, that is use another authors writing as your own;
Not to pre-judge an accused
Not to criticize the judicial acts of a judge adversely affecting the administration of justice
The ethical guidelines prescribed for the print media are not exhaustive but only selective to bring home. The fact that the purpose of codifying the ethico- moral principles is to make the press fully responsible to the society as a whole and to be fair to individuals, so that the print media functions in the best interest of the people.
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