Paid News

Paid News and Political Advertising: Defining The Phenomena

What is political advertisement?

·         Political advertising  relate to promoting an electoral candidate or a political party or a policy proposed by a particular party, in order to appeal to the public.

·          At its core, political advertising does not exclusively relate to elections, political parties or candidates.

·         Advertising on other issues, which reflect important societal debates, such as human rights, environmental issues, welfare schemes etc., and is generally in the nature of political propaganda or pursues political ends, may be construed as political advertising.

·         Law commission define  “political advertisement” means any advertisement paid for by any political party, candidate of a political party, any other person contesting an election, or any other person connected therewith or associated thereto, carrying necessary disclosures as notified by the Election Commission in this regard.”

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What is legitimate political advertisement?

·         Legitimate political advertisements indicate the identity of the sender or the speaker of the communication.

·         This confirms that the communicated piece is an advertisement. Such speech is not sought to be constrained excessively since it promotes political ideas and reflects the ideologies and policy goals of a party, while ensuring that the viewers are aware that the content is not merely informational but also promotional.

·         Under the Indian Constitution, speech of this kind is admittedly within the protection of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

Paid news

·      There is no categorical legal definition of paid news.

·      Paid news has been defined by the Sub-committee of the Press Council of India  as

 “Any news or analysis appearing in any media (Print & Electronic) for a price in cash or kind as consideration.”

·     Law commission Defines “any news or analysis appearing in any media (Print & Electronic) for a price in cash or kind as consideration.”

·     Paid News  is a promotional feature in the guise of an informative and meritorious piece of news.

·     Further, paid news is communicated as any regular news content which is based on the labour invested in news finding and the merit of the author/speaker.

·     In India, the most visible manifestation of the phenomenon of paid news in the electoral scene is in the form of several “packages” offered by the media houses to the candidates. Packages comprise exclusive stories, front page, negative coverage for opponent etc. Several media organizations have accepted money from politicians to provide favourable coverage.

·     In 2014 Lok Sabha Elections itself, around 700 cases of paid news were detected.240 This section explores some of the ways in which paid news is being practiced.

·     On an average, each candidate hires two employees to write news stories about him which are printed without editing and sought to be passed off as independent editorial content

·     A package generally comprises rate cards for coverage of specific political activities during the campaign. For example, there are different rate cards for covering campaign speeches, covering door to door campaign, showing skewed survey results etc.

·      Channels and newspapers have stated that they were not willing to provide air-time to a candidate’s campaign unless he is willing to pay the amount the channel demands.

·     The phenomenon of paid news not just involves the printing of news, but also rejecting or delaying coverage

Political advertisement vs. paid news

·     The ECI Handbook distinguishes between paid news and paid content and suggests that the latter must be unambiguously marked as ‘paid advertisement’.

·      Therefore, political advertisement will be one which is not presented in the garb of news or editorial content, but is clearly discernible as an advertisement.

This demarcation between paid news and political advertising is significant

·         News reporting is supposed to be objective and neutral

·          the neutrality of the news object is not distorted by monetary considerations.

·          it is crucial that the distinction between advertisement and news is easily discernible to the reader.

·          If paid content is presented as news, it harms the election structure at multiple levels.

·         Apart from the deception of voters, the funds paid by candidates for paid news also help them hide the expenditure incurred by them, unlike in advertising, which can be publicly scrutinised.

·         Print and electronic media controls information dissemination which also affects the voters’ decision

Issues and Problems with Paid News and Political Advertising

·         A free and fair election is the cornerstone of any democracy.

·         While free elections are determined by the absence of intimidation and coercion, a functioning secret ballot, and an enforceable right of universal adult suffrage, the concept of a “fair election” – while equally important – is more difficult to capture.

·         Democracies the world over have recognised that “fairness” requires, in some sense, a level playing field.

·         This means that the influence of money in corrupting the electoral process ought to be mitigated.

·         The influence of money  makes elections very uneven towards those who can get extensive funding and can incur the costs of political advertising, and adversely impacts the fairness of elections.

·         Issues with respect to expenditure limits, truth or falsity of the claims, and the possible defamatory effects of advertisements

·         Political advertising raises several serious issues with respect to expenditure limits, truth or falsity of the claims, and the possible defamatory effects of advertisements.

·         The nexus between money and political journalism is manifest not only in the form of expensive advertisements but also in the form of paid editorial or news content.

·         Candidates pay huge amounts of money in a ‘package’ deal for cooked up favourable information to create a false atmosphere for influencing electorate.

Paid news affects  the public’s right to know, which is an aspect of their constitutional right under Article 19(1)(a).

·         The right to know – and, by extension, the right to accurate information on the basis of which to make an informed political choice – is severely undermined by the phenomenon of paid news and undisclosed political advertisement.

Systemic feature of elections

·         the seriousness of these issues is exacerbated by the magnitude to which they have become a systemic feature of elections.

·         The entrenched nature of such practices is demonstrated by the fact that some candidates thought it to be legitimate political expenditure and included in their official expenses for the election.

·          For instance, a candidate had formally represented to the ECI that he had paid a newspaper to publish favourable “news” about himself and had included the payment in his official expenditure statement

·         Legal Framework

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·         Neither is there a blanket prohibition on paid news, nor is there a provision exclusively dealing with political advertisement or paid news. However, several aspects of the current statutory regime regulating elections in India have impact on political advertisement and paid news.

·         Mandatory lodging of accounts

·         Section 77 of the RPA requires every candidate to keep account of expenses in connection with elections. If a candidate has failed to lodge an account of election expenses within the time and in the manner required by or under this Act and has no good reason or justification for the failure, the candidate shall be declared disqualified vide section 10A, RPA.

Disclosure provisions

·         Section 127A of the RPA imposes certain disclosure requirements on printing pamphlets, posters etc. These should bear names and addresses of the printer and the publisher.

A Comparative Perspective

·         In the UK, all paid political advertising is banned from television and radio.

·         Australia- mandates disclosure provisions for any “electoral advertisement, handbill, pamphlet, poster or notice” containing “electoral matter”.  The Australian law also prescribes a ‘Blackout Period’ during which broadcasters must not display any material containing electoral matter which is intended or is likely to affect the voters.

·          In Canada, while election advertising is permitted, the regulations are laid down with respect to adequate disclosure.