Guidelines issued by the Press Council of India to the Press!

1.Write a critique on the Press Council of India, its functions?

The first Press Council of India was constituted on 4th July, 1966 as an autonomous, statutory, quasi-judicial body, with Justice  Markandey Katju , a Supreme Court Judge, as its Chairman. The Council draws its function from the Press Council Act, 1965 which are as follows:
i)    To help newspapers to maintain their independence.
ii)    To build up a code of conduct for newspapers and journalists in accordance with high professional standards.
iii)    To ensure on the part of newspapers and journalists the maintenance of high standards of public taste and foster a due sense of both the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
iv)    To encourage the growth of a sense of responsibility and public service among all those engaged in the profession of journalism.
v)     vi)    To keep under review such cases of assistance received by any newspaper or news agency in India from foreign sources

Guidelines issued by the Press Council of India:

1. Accuracy and Fairness: 
i)    The Press shall avoid publishing inaccurate, baseless, graceless, or misleading material. All sides of the core issue or subject should be reported.
ii)    Whenever exposing the wrong doing such reports need to be backed by convincing facts and evidences.

2.Pre-Publication Verification:
i)    Any report or article of public interest or complaint etc. should be checked for its factual accuracy from other authentic sources.
ii)    A document, which forms a basis of a news report, should be preserved at least for six months.

3.Caution against defamatory writings:
i)    Newspaper should not publish anything which is defamatory or libelous unless after due verification, there is sufficient reason/evidence to believe that it is true and its publication will be for public good.
ii)    No derogatory personal remarks against a dead person should be published except in rare cases of public interest. .
iv)     Publication of defamatory news by one paper does not give licence to others to publish news/information reproducing or repeating the same. .
vi)    Freedom of Press does not give licence to a newspaper to malign a political leader or by publishing fake and defamatory writings.

4. Public Interest and Public Bodies:

As a custodian of public interest, the Press has a right to highlight cases of corruption and irregularities in public bodies but it should be based on convincing evidence.
Newspapers should refrain from barbed, stinging and spicy language and ironical/satirical style of comment.

5. Right to Privacy:
The Press shall not intrude or invade the privacy of an individual, unless outweighed by genuine overriding public interest..
{Note: Things concerning a person's home, family, religion, health, sexuality, personal life and private affairs are covered by the concept of PRIVACY.}

6.Caution against Identification:
While reporting crime involving rape, abduction or kidnap of women/females or sexual  assault on children, or raising doubts and questions touching the chastity, personal character and privacy of women, the names, photographs of the victims or other particulars leading to their identity shall not be published.
Minor children and infants who are the offspring of sexual abuse or forcible marriage' or illicit sexual union shall not be identified or photographed.
Intrusion through photography into moments of personal grief shall be avoided.

7.Recording interviews and phone conversation:
The Press shall not tape-record anyone's conversation without that person's knowledge or consent, except where it is required to protect the journalist in a legal action, or for other compelling good reason.
Prior to publication offensive epithets used during such conversation should be deleted.

8.Conjecture(Speculation}, comment and fact:
Newspaper should not pass on or elevate conjecture, speculation or comment as a statement of fact.
Cartoons and caricatures depicting good humour are to be placed in a special category of news that enjoy more liberal attitude.

9.Headings not to be sensational/provocative:
a. Provocative and sensational headlines are to be avoided;
b. Headings must reflect and justify the matter printed under them;
c. Headings containing allegations made in statements should either identify the body or the source making it or at least carry quotation marks.

10.Newspapers to eschew suggestive guilt: Newspapers should not name or identify the family or relatives or associates of a person convicted or accused of a crime, when they are totally innocent.

11.Caution in criticizing judicial acts and reporting proceedings of a Legislature:
it is open to a newspaper to report pending judicial proceedings, in a fair, accurate and reasonable manner.

 In case of Legislature newspapers have a duty to report faithfully the proceedings of either House of Parliament or Legislative Assembly which is open for the media.
Newspapers may make reasonable criticism of a judicial act or the judgment of a court for public good but shall not scandalize(outrange) the court or the judiciary as a whole, or make personal allegations of lack of ability or integrity against a judge.

12.Corrections: When any factual error or mistake is detected or confirmed, the newspaper should publish the correction promptly with apology or expression of regrets in a case of serious lapse.

13.Right of Reply: The newspaper should promptly and with due prominence, publish either in full or with due editing, free of cost, at the instance of the person affected or feeling aggrieved/or concerned by the impugned publication..

14.Obscenity and vulgarity to be eschewed: Newspapers/journalists shall not publish anything which is obscene, vulgar or offensive to public good taste. Newspapers shall not display advertisements which are vulgar or which, through depiction of a woman in nude or lewd posture. The globalisation and liberalisation do not give license to the media to misuse freedom of the press and to lower the values of the society. So far as one of the duties of the media is to preserve and promote our cultural heritage and social values.

15.Photo Coverage on Terrorist Attack, Communal Clashes and Accidents:  While reporting news with regard to terrorist attacks or communal riots, the media should refrain from publishing/telecasting pictures of mangled corpses or any other photographic coverage which may create terror, or revulsion(distaste) or ignite communal excitement among people.
It shall avoid presenting acts of violence, armed robberies and terrorist activities in a manner that glorifies their acts.

16.Caste, religion or community references:

In general, the caste identification of a person or a particular class should be avoided. Newspapers are advised against the use of word 'Scheduled Caste' or 'Harijan' which has been objected to by some.
An accused or a victim shall not be described by his caste or community .

Newspaper should not publish any fictional literature distorting and portraying the religious or well known characters in an adverse light offending the vulnerability of large sections of society who hold those characters in high esteem.
It is the duty of the newspaper to ensure that the tone, spirit and language of a write up is not objectionable, provocative, against the unity and integrity of the country.

17. Paramount national interest: Newspapers shall  restraint and caution in presenting any news, comment or information which is likely to jeopardise, endanger or harm the chief interests of the State and society.
Publication of wrong/incorrect map is a very serious offence. It adversely affects the territorial integrity of the country and warrants prompt and prominent retraction with regrets.

18.Foreign Relations: Media plays a very important role in moldings public opinion and developing better understanding between countries. Objective reporting so as not to jeopardise friendly bilateral relations is therefore desirable though newspapers may expose misuse of diplomatic immunity.


20. Investigative journalism, its norms and parameters:
Investigative reporting has three basic elements.
a. It has to be the work of the reporter, not of others he is reporting;
b. The subject should be of public importance for the reader to know;
c. The investigative reporter should, as a rule, base his story on facts investigated, detected and verified by himself and not on gossip or on imitative evidence collected by a third party.

d. The investigative journalist should maintain a proper balance between openness and secrecy.

e. The tone of the report and its language should be sober, decent and dignified, and not needlessly offensive, barbed, .

21.Confidence to be respected:  
If information is received from a confidential source, the confidence should be respected. This rule requiring a newspaper not to publish matters disclosed to it in confidence is not applicable where:
(a) Consent of the source is subsequently obtained; or
(b) The editor clarifies by way of an appropriate footnote clarifies that since the publication of certain matters were in the public interest.

22.Advertisements: Commercial advertisements are information as much as social, economic or political information. What is more, Journalistic respectability demands that advertisements must be clearly distinguishable from news content carried in the newspaper

23. Newspapers to avoid crass commercialism:
While newspapers are entitled to ensure, improve or strengthen their financial viability by all legitimate means, the Press shall not engage in blundering commercialism

The practice of taking security deposit by an editor from the journalists at the time of their appointment is unethical.
media house cannot be permitted to become subservient to other business interests.

Apart from all this newspaper should avoid involvement in fraudulent activities, professional rivalry, plagiarism, unauthorized lifting of news.

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THE PROCESS OF COMMUNICATION

Communication is  a process between at least two people that begins when one person wants to communicate with another. Communication originates as mental images within a person who desires to convey those images to another.

 Mental images can include ideas, thoughts, pictures, and emotions.

The person who wants to communicate is called the sender.

·         To transfer an image to another person, the sender first must transpose or translate the images into symbols that receivers can understand. Symbols often are words but can be pictures, sounds, or sense information (e.g., touch or smell). The process of translating images into symbols is called encoding.

·         The receiver, the individual to whom the message is directed, attends to and perceives the incoming patterned information, identifying it as a specific language message. The receiver then decodes the message by constructing his or her own interpretations of the conventionalized meanings of the symbols.

·         As a result of interpretations, the receiver is influenced in some way.
And the last step in the process of communication is the is an intra-personal act .

 

·         The next level in the communication process is to transmit or communicate the message to a receiver. This can be done in many ways: during face-to-face verbal interaction, over the telephone, through printed materials (letters, newspapers, etc.), or through visual media (television, photographs). Verbal, written, and visual media are three examples of possible communication channels used to transmit messages between senders and receivers. Other transmission channels include touch, gestures, clothing, and physical distances between sender and receiver.

·         When a message is received by another person, a decoding process occurs. Just as a sender must encode messages in preparation for transmission through communication channels, receivers must sense and interpret the symbols and then decode the information back into images, emotions, and thoughts that make sense to them. When messages are decoded exactly as the sender has intended, the images of the sender and the images of the receiver match, and effective communication occurs.

·         The message is then transmitted – spoken or written so as to cross the space between the sender and receiver as a signal of patterned information.

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COMMUNICATION MODELS

1.The linear communication model. :This model is based on the idea of one-way communication in which a message is simply sent from one person and received by another. This model appears to be quite simple, The linear model of communication includes several concepts. They are sender, receiver, message, channel, and noise.

2.The interactional  model of communication. Circular Communication Model

The interactional model of communication contains all of the concepts of the linear model and adds the concept of feedback. Feedback is a response from the receiver to the sender about the message.

Wilbur Schramm is one of the early theorists to demonstrate the model of

Communication as circular . The roles of encoder and decoder are interchangeable. Thus, each person in the communication process is encoder and decoder. This circular model also suggests the interesting notion that these functions can go on simultaneously.

3. An Instructional Model: THE ROSS COMMUNICATION MODEL (1982)

The Ross Model focuses on the human sign-symbol behavior. This model suggests the importance of situation, mood, context, and psychological climate.

 Situation could then make a real difference. Mood refers to feelings of the moment. At different times our mood might be happy, angry, tense, and so on. Our mood can greatly affect what we say or hear and how we say or hear something. Context is the framework into which your situation fits. Different contexts bring out different meanings

The brain, composed of 12 billion working parts estimated that the human brain can store an amount of information equivalent to 100 trillion different words. In a lifetime of 70 years, a human being may store information roughly equivalent to a mere trillion words. In the Ross Communication Model, the sender chooses items from her storehouse of knowledge and experience to help her communicate her intended message to the receiver; the receiver, in turn, decodes the message using his storehouse of knowledge and experience.

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Elements of Communication

1.The sender is the source or originator of the message.

2.The message is a verbal (spoken) or nonverbal (behavior or gesture) transmission

of ideas. The sender goes through a process of encoding to translate ideas

and emotions into a code (in our case verbal or nonverbal symbols). The message

is then passed to the receiver .

3.The receiver goes through a process of decoding to interpret the translated ideas of the sender.

4.Channel : The passing of the message travels through a channel or pathway of communication. The channel can be anything from a text message to a face-to-face discussion.

5.Noise : Anything that interferes with the transmission of the message is considered

noise. Noise consists of anything that physically or psychologically gets in the way of the message being received and understood.

Feedback: Feedback is the response or acknowledgement of the receiver to the communicator’s mind. Feedback returns information to the sender of a message, thereby enabling the sender to determine whether the message was received or correctly understood.

Field of Experience: The life experience of the encoder and decoder that create their frame of reference such as their beliefs, attitudes, and values. We each carry our field of experience wherever we go. With similar life experiences, a chance of relating each other is effective. Communication depends upon shared meaning.

Context: Every communication takes place in some context, or setting. Sometimes, the context is so natural we fail to notice it; at other times, the context makes such an impression on us that we make a conscious effort to control our behavior because of it.

Effect: Every communication has an outcome; that is it has some effect. The consequence may be monetary, cognitive, physical or emotional.

Change: Change is the final destination of any communication process. A person communicates with another to change. Change refers to the influence one has on other’s knowledge or behavior.

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TYPES OF COMMUNICATION

Derived from the Greek word “communicare” or “communico” which means “to share”.

Community implies a group of people living in one place. Languages are the codes of communications.

Definitions of communication

Communication is a process, that a transfer of meaning from one mind to another or each party influences the other.  Communication is a dynamic process.  Communication involves common experience and mutual influence.  This process has no beginning or end and is ever changing, dynamic, and mutual.

Types of communication.

(1)   verbal communication.

(2)   Non-verbal communication.

  Two types of verbal communication.

(1)   Formal communication.

Formal communication:We use this type of communication in offices and social gathering.

Two types of formal communication.

a.       (1) Downward

b.      (2) Upward

 

Downward  communication. :

Higher designation to lower designation.Ex. Boss ordered his worker.

Here effect of this type of communication is very much than upward communication.

Upward communication.

Lower designation to higher designation. Ex. Worker request to his boss.

Here the effect of communication is less

than downward communication.

(2)   informal communication. We use this type of communication with our family or friends.

Three types of informal communication

Lateral communication.

Found among members working at the same level.Ex. Peer group.

Most effective form of communication.

Barrier of subordinates or boss is not

present here.

Diagonal communication.

In Diagonal communication the path is mixture of vertical and horizontal movement.

In large communications various departments need communication support from each other.

Grapevine communication.

           Also called as “backbiting” or“backstabbing”.A backstabber is a colleague or an employee who acts like a friend in public but badmouth you in private.

Non-verbal communication :Through signs & symbols. It can go without verbal communication.

Nonverbal communications  include all forms of communication that are not part of the

language that we speak or write. There are many ways that  we reveal ourselves nonverbally This text will concentrate  on the three areas of nonverbal communication that will  most likely affect contract negotiations:

• Body language (kinesic communication) using facial  expressions, body movements, gestures, and posture; 

• Physical environment (proxemic communication) using  available space, distance from or proximity to other  people, and territorial control; and

• Personal attributes such as:  o Physical appearance (artifactual communication) including all options that communicators use to  modify their appearance;

·         Vocal cues (auditory communication); and   Touch (tactile communication) particularly the  handshake.

Conscious or Subliminal Messages. Nonverbal communications  can involve conscious or subliminal messages.

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Communication for Development

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