Onus of responsible poll coverage limited to print
After many years one is seeing the Delhi assembly elections being projected to have national ramification. For many polls that this writer covered as a newspaper reporter, the national editions of the newspapers, that is papers published from New Delhi, remained very miser about giving space to the ‘çity stories’. This time it looks to be different.
However, this scenario is not different just from the point of view of the newspapers taking more Delhi poll stories on the front pages but also the overdose of coverage on the video platforms of television and the digital media. Last week witnessed the three leading anchors of a channel in the ‘exclusive show’ giving coverage to Delhi polls on the same day. In order to be different, and also exciting, and getting better of one-another, some of them ended up being ludicrous.
The ‘independent’ digital reel and video makers are at their best in belting out no substance stories with eyeball catching headlines. With the whole focus being on gathering ‘impressions in millions’ for every post, in most of the cases audience ends up being cheated.
In fact, even the digital platforms of the established television news channels have also been acting most preposterously giving as good as a false headline to bring audience on board. Is such media coverage in sync with what’s expected of newspersons vis-à-vis news coverage?
The Election Commission of India has a thought-provoking take on this. It mentions, “The spread of misinformation and fake news has become a significant concern in today’s digital age, especially during critical events like elections. In order to ensure a level playing field for all stakeholders, it is vital that misinformation and disinformation does not derail a factually correct narrative.”
Before we discuss further, for the convenience of the readers, let’s differentiate between misinformation and disinformation. American Psychological Association defines the two concepts as, “Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.” The news coverage on our digital platforms, if it can be called news at all, goes beyond the concept of misinformation and disinformation. The genre of news that we are finding on the Indian digital platform find an echo in the definition given on the subject by ‘Kriterion – Journal of Philosophy’, which mentions, “Fake news is misleading information intentionally published and presented as news which has the function of deliberately misleading its recipients about its status as news.”
Coming back to the Elections Commission’s take on the matter, it further mentions, “Recognizing the need to combat the dissemination of false information and ensure the integrity of the electoral process, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has taken a proactive step by publishing a Myth vs. Reality Register. This Myth vs. Reality register serves as a repository of debunked fake news related to elections in India, providing a reliable resource to verify the authenticity of information regarding the electoral process circulating during election periods.”
However, a close scrutiny of the register suggests that the Election Commission has taken to only ‘debunking’ such fake news which relates to its functioning. Since political campaign is very much part of the election process, the register fails to cover a major process of false opinion building on the digital media platforms through fake news.
At the end of the day, the regulations and close scrutiny of election advertisements and reportage is getting limited practically to the print media platforms, at best it’s being extended to the television channels. The poll regulator too has not assigned to itself the role to regulate digital media.
A press note in this regard by the Election Commission mentions, “The Commission has directed that maximum vigilance may be observed by making use of the existing provisions of law so that the incidence of ‘Paid News’ or surrogate advertisements in Print and Electronic media in the context of elections is arrested.”
How does one, to use Commission’s expression, “arrest incidence of ‘Paid News’ or surrogate advertisements on digital media.” To cut the long story short, the definition of media in our country is still limited, at least in the government registers, to print media and the expectation to act responsibly also remains limited to the newspapers and the magazines.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice