Such coverage is against the good taste and decency: Center schools media over coverage of Rishabh Pant’s car accident

In the wake of extensive media coverage of Rishabh Pant’s road accident and few more crime incidents in the country, Centre Government on Monday strictly termed the coverage as ‘against good taste and decency’ and told media houses to strictly adhere to the codes laid down under the relevant law.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting called upon the television channels to obey the rules laid down by the Cable Television Networks (Rgulation) Act while reporting incidents of crime, accident and violence, including death.

The ministry specifically mentioned coverage of Rishabh Pant’s car accident, the airing of distressing images of dead bodies and the thrashing of a five-year-old boy.

“Showing dead bodies of individual and images/videos of injured person with blood splattered around, people including women, children and elderly being beaten mercilessly in close shots, continuous cries and shrieks of a child being beaten by a teacher, shown repeatedly over several minutes including circling the actions thereby making it even more ghastly, without taking the precaution of blurring the images of showing them from long shots,” I&B ministry said.

The ministry further noted that little efforts were made by the media channels to edit or attune the video clips and images they picked up from social media so as to comply with the programme code.

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The advisory issued by the ministry also opined that such reports can also have an adverse psychological impact on children. There is also a crucial issue of invasion of privacy which could be potentially maligning and defamatory, it added. 

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