New Delhi: The Congress manifesto released on Wednesday promised freedom of the media, saying it would “guard against government interference”. Among the seven promises they made, they said they would “protect the freedom of journalists, uphold editorial independence”.

They manifesto says that sections of the media have abused their freedom or surrendered it.

One of the seven promises appears unrealistic: The manifesto says that the Congress will pass a law to “curb monopolies in the media, cross-ownership of different segments of the media and control of the media by other business organisations”. It says the party will refer cases of monopolies and cross-ownership to the Competition Commission.

However, media watchers and commentators find this proposal somewhat untenable.

“This promise is where there is going to be in trouble,” says John Thomas, former editor at Deccan Herald and a media academic based in Bengaluru.

NewsLaundry looked at a few big media houses in 2014 and showed their various political and corporate linkages.

For example, NewsLaundry showed the Deccan Chronicle group’s various links. Its chairman is T. Venkatraman Reddy, who is related to two Congress MPs. Insurance companies and banks like LIC, Religare and ICICI Bank had various shares in the company. Several newspapers are produced by this group including the Asian Age and Financial Chronicle, apart from Deccan Chronicle.

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Cross-holding of media was not dealt with in the past and over the years, business houses have gotten bigger as they tagged on more areas to their holdings.

The problems of these monopolies were discussed in 1954 and 1982 press commission reports, says Suruchi Mazumdar, a scholar of media studies and assistant professor at OP Jindal Global University. “There were even proposals to disperse ownership shares of large newspapers in the hands of public trustees and the public takeover of newspaper companies.”

More recently, there was also a 2009 report commissioned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting which recommended restrictions on cross media ownership, as well as a standing committee report which criticised the government for not implementing the 2009 report.

But all of this failed to cure the problem. “Media owners refused to accept the need for laws on cross media ownership, arguing that such regulation would lead to censorship and is against the principles of a free press,” says Mazumdar.

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“Undoing that which is already established is going to be a Herculean task and not something they will attempt for fear of antagonising all the powerful mediawallahs. This is the same reason that governments keep on saying that self-regulation is best, even when they know it is not working either,” says Thomas.

Sevanti Ninan, editor of the media watchdog The Hoot, says that while curbing these monopolies, the government “could end up interfering with the commercial freedom of the media business sector. All this should be handled by an independent regulator.”

Congress promises “self-regulation” to media

The Congress also wants better “self-regulation” and for this they promise to amend the Press Council of India Act, 1978. This amendment will also empower the council to deal with fake and paid news.

The Congress wants to further work with the Press Council and media associations to enforce a “code of conduct” for reporting on natural disasters, communal conflicts, riots, terrorist attacks and war.

On this too, media commentators say the promises are misguided.

This is because the Press Council is appointed by the government itself and has no statutory powers anyway.

“Its surprising to see the Congress make it central to its commitment to media freedom,” says Ninan. “If you use a body which has no statutory powers to uphold editorial independence and guard against government interference, it will have little impact.”

If the Congress is serious about this, they could make the council a statutory body, she says.

“For the press council to be more effective, there must be reform in its very structure with stronger representation of working journalists and civil society groups rather than media owners. Also, the press council at present governs only the print media. It is essential to reform the existing law to bring broadcast and online media under its purview,” says Mazumdar.