Panaji, April 30 (Inditop.com) There should be a ban on television news channels that broadcast one single news story throughout the day, Goa Rajya Sabha member Shantaram Naik demanded Friday.
In a statement, Naik, a Congress MP, said it was unfortunate that on a day when a tornado killed nearly 120 people in West Bengal and Bihar, nearly all news channels only reported the Indian Premier League (IPL) row.
“According to the channels, such tragedies perhaps carry no news value while IPL controversies mean everything to them,” Naik said, adding that he had made a special mention of the issue in the Rajya Sabha Thursday.
The former Goa state Congress chief also took a dig at what he called was the obsession of news channels in India with the Sania Mirza-Shoaib Malik marriage story.
“For three days viewers were told that this is the only thing happening in the country,” he said.
The MP said that Section 6 of the rules framed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 even had a programme code prescribed by the government but this was brazenly flouted by television networks.
“This code needs to be amended to prohibit telecasting one single item continuously, disregarding other national or regional items, more particularly, news relating to national tragedies,” he said.
rounak