This article has been written by Ms. Indrakshi Chaku, an upcoming law student

Introduction

Article 19 of the UN’s Universal declaration of Human Rights reads: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media [emphasis added] and regardless of frontiers.” The same principal is enshrined in the article 19 (1) of Indian constitution. Keeping abreast with the international standards, India has extended the right to freedom of speech and expression to the media. Various acts and judgements over the years go on to show country’s commitment towards promoting a free and fair media. Access to free media is a human right. However, we must also examine the responsibility of media towards human rights. Broadly speaking the ethics governing media are based on the public belief that the public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and foundation of democracy. Owing to the set of ethics governing the industry, professionals related to media bear the burden of presenting factually accurate information. Newer forms of media like social media platforms are completely unvetted. Information can be spread with a click without any prior editing. Therefore, With the newer forms of media it becomes all the more important to delve deep into the pool of questions surrounding Media’s responsibility towards the truth

Evolution of media ethics

Ethics play a crucial role in shaping the culture of a country. The ethical perception perpetuated in an area leads to ethical decision making in that respective area. The purpose of establishing media ethics is thus clear. It aims to encourage decision making, on the behalf of press and entertainment industry, which is congruent with the perceived notions of morality and ethics. In 1968, the All-India Newspaper Editors’ Conference (AINEC) formulated a code of ethics for media which had promotion of unity and cohesion among people, through dissemination of information, as one of its core values.  In 1976, Rajya Sabha adopted a code of ethics for journalists and newspapers, in pursuance of its social and moral responsibility. The code, clearly stating the moral responsibility of media towards the presentation of truthful information, further enshrines the core principles like truth, accuracy, independence, fairness, impartiality, humanity and accountability, which form the backbone of a successful democracy. Additionally, in 2006, India enforced the international code of ethics drafted at Stockholm symposium in 1991. This further plays a significant part towards strengthening media’s conviction of delivering a truthful, fair and unbiased story.

Loopholes in present set of ethics

Media has the power to influence people. This is done through the way of disseminating information. Section 15 (2) of the press council act, 1978 extends the right of confidentiality to journalists in context with revealing the source of their information. The law commission of India in its report, disclosure of sources of information by mass media, dated September 1983, further recommended to increase the ambit of this statutory amendment to other forms of media. Although such regulations protect the right to freedom of speech and expression constitutionally guaranteed to media in article 19(1) and further emboldened by the supreme court in the Romesh Thapar Vs State of Madras, 1950, they make it extremely difficult to evaluate the factual accuracy of information circulated by media. For instance, the mainstream media coverage of the Chennai rainfall event and the heat wave in Andhra Pradesh in 2015 were subjected to Extreme event attribution studies (EEA studies). However, despite the reassurance that such studies have been conducted, journalists were most commonly found to be using generic phrases to describe the link between such events and climate change and relevant EEA studies were seldom quoted.

This further paved the way for politicians and NGOs to blame climate change without any reference to the science. Such circumstances lead to a widespread scepticism among scholars when it comes to trusting information disseminated by the media. During the investigation of Ryan Augustine Pinto vs State of Haryana and Anr ,21 November, 2017, media channels heavily criticised the alleged accused, a bus driver, of murdering the victim. These allegations were completely baseless with no substantive proof. However, the constant depiction of conspiracies by media led the wrongfully accused person to suffer significant damage to his career and reputation. The personal political affiliations of media have also played a conspicuous part towards deteriorating ethical values in the profession. The Cambridge Analytica campaign scandal aptly goes on to embody the sentiment. The company created individual psychographic profiles for individuals to promote US senator, Ted Cruz’s’ presidential campaign. The company collected the user data from social media platform Facebook without user permission, to further the political agendas of Republican party.

The same strategy was advanced by the company during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, violating the sanctity of media advertising. Due to the heavy media coverage of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon vs State Of Maharashtra,2013 the lawyers defending the accused faced heavy criticisms which made it difficult for them to fulfil their ethical duty of providing legal aid to the parties. The media has also brought negative cultural shifts through glorification of unrealistic standards and harmful information. Research by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron, and others starting in the 1980s found that children who watched many hours of violence on television when they were in elementary school tended to show higher levels of aggressive behaviour when they became teenagers. The Madras High Court in India initiated a public interest litigation by itself seeking steps from the central government to issue bans on “violent online games.” The High Court is seeking responses from the Centre, State Government, Google, and YouTube on the matter and called for hosting awareness programs in educational institutions. The recent petitions started against Indian brand Unilever forced it to retreat its fairness cream from the market. The brand received heavy backlash for using branding strategies like advertising to perpetuate and benefit from entrenched racism prevalent in Indian society. The petition, signed by around d 18000 people finally held the company liable for such branding strategy. However, media platforms circulating such advertisements continue to dodge accountability. 

Conclusion

Media is the propeller of truth in a democracy. Media ethics, a set of rules governing the conduct of professionals in the industry, have evolved in India through a series of conferences and codes. The last decade has witnessed various forms of media coming under fire for not fulfilling their obligation towards circulating truthful information. Although media continues to enjoy its freedom of speech and expression, the reasonable restrictions put on the same have not been enough to curb the dissemination of false information and fake news. Infect, the violations of media ethics have increased in the contemporary times, despite international codes like international code of ethics being in force. This proves to be a threat to the democratic structure, political climate and the culture of the country. Therefore, it’s imperative that suitable steps are taken to better enforce the ethics in the media industry. Moreover, special attention must also be paid to not crossing the delicate line between accountability and oppression of media.

Reference 

http://chm.pops.int/Countries/StatusofRatifications/PartiesandSignatoires/tabid/4500/Default.aspx 

https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com , Relationship between culture & ethic: research in terms of cultural diversity