Electronic Journalism

Lesson 15 : Media Policies - Laws For Electronic Journalism

Introduction

The broadcast media was under complete monopoly of the Government of India for long time. Private organizations were involved only in commercial advertising and sponsorships of programmes. However, in Secretary, Ministry of I&B v. CAB, the Supreme Court clearly differed from the aforementioned monopolistic approach and emphasized that, every citizen has a right to telecast and broadcast to the viewers/listeners any important event through electronic media, television or radio and also provided that the Government had no monopoly over such electronic media as such monopolistic power of the Government was not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution or in any other law prevailing in the country. This judgment, thus, brought about a great change in the position prevailing in the broadcast media, and such sector became open to the citizens. While there are many Acts dealing with print media, there are few Acts dealing with the broadcast media.