Frontlist | Keep us out of new rules for online content, print & TV media groups tell Modi govt

All these media houses are primarily print and television organisations, with a digital presence. None of them is an exclusively digital news organisation. With most newspapers also having their e-paper or online versions, and television channels running their stories on their websites too, they were brought under the new IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, released last month. After the interaction, the government in a statement said the TV and print media organisations welcomed the new rules. However, the organisations said they have been following the existing norms of the Cable Television Network Act and the Press Council Act for a very long time, the statement added. “Further for publishing the digital versions, the publishers do follow the existing norms of the traditional platforms,” the statement said. “They felt that they should be treated differently than those news publishers, who are only on the digital platform,” the statement added. Javadekar said in the statement that while print media and TV channels have digital versions whose content is almost the same as that on the traditional platforms, there is content which appears exclusively on the digital platforms.