By Satyaki Chakraborty
Reports that the internet service providers have blocked the website ‘ The Wire’ at the instance of the union ministry of the Information & Broadcasting signal the centre’s wrong priority in crippling the independent media while allowing the national TV channels going jingoist and spreading fake news to divide the nation.
The Wire has been reporting the India-Pakistan confrontation with an open mind. Their experts have analysed all aspect of Narendra Modi government’s policies. The central officials may disagree to some of those but those were written from the standpoint of journalistic ethics based on facts. Just because the reporting and the commentaries do not follow one hundred per cent of what the government is saying does not mean that the website can be blocked by the centre denying information to thousand of viewers who access to the news portal for getting studied observations.
On May 9, the viewers could not have access to the news portal since morning and soon afterwards, the website’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan in a statement said that the censorship comes at a critical time for India when sane, truthful, fair and rational voices and sources of information are among the biggest assets India has. It was learnt that The Wire was blocked by the ISPs as per instruction of the government under the latest Act for digital platform.
DIGIPUB News India Foundation, a platform of various digital news media organisations and independent journalists, has strongly condemned the blocking of access to The Wire’s website, saying that if indeed the Indian government has done so, it is a “blatant attack on press freedom”. Silencing independent media not protect democracy — it weakens it, read the statement.
DIGIPUB, which has among its members many news websites and independent journalists, has called for immediate reversal of the censorship. The Communist Party of India in a statement strongly condemned the government action in blocking The Wire and called upon the IT minister to immediately withdraw the blockade.
The blocking of access to The Wire comes in the backdrop of escalating tension between India and Pakistan amid a flood of fake, inflammatory and provocative news telecast being done by TV channels known to be close to the BJP and the government, even as various independent YouTube channels, such as 4PM, as well as of individual satirists, such as singer Neha Singh Rathore and lecturer Madri Kakoti (Dr Medusa) and others, have been blocked or booked
The Chennai Press Club, too, condemned media censorship and called for immediate restoration of blocked news platforms, such as The Wire and Maktoob Media.
In a statement on May 9, it said “at a time when the public urgently needs access to accurate, diverse, and independent information – particularly amid rising tensions between India and Pakistan – such arbitrary blocks set a dangerous precedent and suppress voices committed to public interest journalism.”
The Chennai Press Club also called upon all media organisations, national and regional, “to exercise utmost responsibility, accuracy and restraint” in their coverage of the India-Pakistan tensions, so as not to “inflame public sentiment and compromise national security and harmony.
The Press Club of India, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Delhi Union of Journalists and the Press Association also condemned the crackdown on independent media, such as The Wire. In a joint statement, they pointed out that some sections of the media and independent YouTube channels have also been “unfairly targeted”. The statement also mentioned the withholding of the X accounts of well-known journalists Anuradha Bhasin and Muzamil Jaleel as well as independent media organisation Maktoob Media on “legal demand” by the government.
“While there is no doubt that the media as a whole has to conduct itself responsibly, the arbitrary blocks on the some social media accounts of media-persons and news organisations, the orders for which have not been made public, must be lifted,” read the statement. (IPA Service)
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