MUMBAI: The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) has issued a missive to New Delhi Television Ltd’s English and Hindi language news channels NDTV 24×7 and NDTV India to apologize on air for a news report they aired in October 2015.
The report is related to the lynching of a man in Nahan, Shimla. The two channels had blamed the lynching on specific religious groups, naming them in their headlines.
A detailed order issued by justice R.V. Raveendran, chairperson of the authority, said, “NBSA decided that the broadcaster (both channels) be directed to air its regret/apology for attributing the lynching to some named religious groups, apparently without verification of facts.”
Both the channels have been asked to air the apology before 25 July prior to their 9 pm news.
In another order, the NBSA asked News24 to submit an expression of regret and assure that it would adhere to the principles of self-regulation after it felt that one of its programmes on allegations against functionaries of a political party did not adhere to the norms related to objectivity.
Of these three one agreed to indiantelevision.com that it would abide by the NBSA’s order. News24 editor in chief Anuradha Prasad said, “We will abide by NSBA’s guidelines and will have a scroll running on our channel.”
Attempts to connect with NDTV met with no response. But one can expect it to run an apology.
Other channels also got a rap on their knuckles and were asked to say sorry. ETV Chhattisgarh had run a programme titled Vampires which was found violative of the norms. The NSBA has imposed a Rs 1 lakh fine on ETV Bangla and asked it to display apology after it felt that its coverage of an incident in Jadavpur University flouted the norms related to impartiality and objectivity. NBSA has asked ETV UP/Uttarakhand to run an apology and air versions of some persons regarding whom news reports had been telecast.
