Key Points:
- News Broadcasting Standard Authority fines AajTak with Rs 1 lakh.
- They’re fined for fake tweets and corpse pictures of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
- Zee News and News 24 have to air an apology.
- News Nation and ABP Majha have been left off with a warning.
The News Broadcasting Standard Authority (NBSA) has fined AajTak which is a Hindi-language news channel of the India Today group with Rs 1 lakh. They have been fined for broadcasting fake tweets relating to the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
The broadcaster has been asked to air an apology by the NBSA confessing on National Television that it did not conduct a proper investigation of tweets that it aired pointing them to the late actor.
It has asked AajTak to submit the documents and information material of the telecast of the apology to the association within 7 days of telecast. In addition, NSBA also said that the fine should be paid to it within 7 days of receipt of the order.
“Egregious violations of guidelines” is what NSBA named the behavior of AajTak. The way the images of the dead body of Sushant Singh were continually publicized by the channel was the main reason of NBSA suing the channel.
Zee News and News 24 have also been asked to air their apologies in context of specific programs and tag lines that the channels telecasted.
When Zee News channel broadcasted “Patna ka Sushant, Mumbai me fail kyu?” [Why did Patna’s Sushant fail in Mumbai] tagline, the NSBA observed that it gives the notion that suicide is a failure. “There may be various reasons for suicide but the impression created was that a small-town boy committed suicide in a metro city which was his ‘failure’,” it added.
The channel let off the issued warning against News Nation for showing Sushant’s corpse when the channel considered itself guilty for the deeds and said it would not be repeated ever again. ABP Majha was also excused with a warning as the authority noted that the channel did not show close up photos of the actor’s body.
“While it is the duty of the news channel to report news, which may be in public interest and the persons being reported upon may get justice from such media reports, it is equally important to present the news in a manner which does not violate the privacy of the dead nor sensationalize a tragic incident. It is important that the dead must not be subjected to unnecessary media glare.”
— News Broadcasting Standards Authority
AajTak has been ordered to remove the objectionable content from every media platform immediately.
