Self-regulation and media revenue models have to keep pace with changing scenario: I&B minister Tewari

NEW DELHI: information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari has called for a robust self-regulation regime in the country to keep pace with the changing media environment.

"Content regulation in the media space is not going to come out of the political executive, but will come out of the judicial process. Make self-regulation more inclusive and robust to keep out judicial intervention," he said, while speaking at the Red Ink Awards function of the Press Club Mumbai on 25 May.

Tewari said "with exponential growth in the media space, a paradigm shift has taken place, wherein regulations have to keep pace with changing technologies and have to be universal."

He said there was a need for constant introspection so that the self-regulation process could be taken forward.

He pointed out that social media has reshaped media today and in effect, there are over 80 million broadcasters in the form of micro-bloggers, twitter and Facebook users. The minister went on to mention the Paradox of Short Fuse, which pits proliferating instruments of dissemination against growing intolerance. He said such a situation creates conflict between Article 19 guaranteeing the freedom of speech and reasonable restrictions to be imposed on it.

Tewari also observed that the revenue models of Indian media organisations have not been well constructed, which in turn has led to the issues of paid news, private treaties, tyranny of TRPs and sensationalism.

N Ram, participating in a panel discussion, observed that reasonable restrictions were often becoming unreasonable restrictions and jurisdiction of criminal contempt was posing a serious challenge to fearless journalism.

Arnab Goswami, who was moderating the discussion, said media had the right to defend its turf from frequent judicial interventions.