Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar on Thursday held a virtual meeting with representatives of Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA).

This meeting comes in the backdrop of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Addressing the representatives, Javadekar stated that digital news publishers will need to ensure adherence to Code of Ethics such as the norms of journalistic conduct framed by the Press Council of India and the Programme Code under the Cable Television Network Act. In addition, the three tier-grievance redressal mechanism of which the first and second tier would be of the digital news publishers and self-regulatory bodies constituted by them will need to be followed.

The Minister said that the rules seek to bring digital media at par with the traditional media in terms of adherence of the code of ethics.

"The digital news publishers would also be required to furnish some basic information to the Ministry in a simple form which is being finalised and periodically they would be required to place in public domain the grievance redressal undertaken by them," the official statement added.

Representatives of some of the leading media organisations , with a presence in the television and the print space, pointed out that they are already adhering to norms laid down under the Cable TV Network Act and the Press Council Act, when publishing news content in the digital format. "They felt that they should be treated differently than those news publishers who are only on the digital platforms," the official statement added.

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