VIDEOS FROM THE RECENT ALL PARTY DELEGATION to different countries on the India-Pakistan conflict had one thing in common - Asian News Agency’s (‘ANI’) logo. So a question naturally arises – can one news agency (ANI), which is a private company (unlike some others such as Press Trust of India (‘PTI’), which is a Trust), exercise a de facto monopoly in covering government related official news?
Why were the other news agencies such as PTI, Indo-Asian News Service (‘IANS’), Press Information Bureau (‘PIB’), or United News India (‘UNI’)absent from the whole scene? Were they not invited by the Government of India to go with the official delegation? Or were they invited but asked to pay for themselves but they simply did not have the funds to cover the same?
Further, if the Government of India did not ‘invite’ anyone, and ANI went on its own, just because it had the ‘resources’ to do so, is it okay to allow one agency to disrupt the level playing field?
Most importantly, why is the state owned public broadcaster – Doordarshan, which is funded by public money, being ignored? Surely, the Indian government can at least fund a team of journalists to accompany the official delegation?
These questions are not limited to the coverage of the recent official all party delegation. They are fundamental to understanding the undue advantage that ANI seems to be getting, at the cost of all others.
