Few dailies in trouble for doing "Paid News" on Maharashtra CM

Recently, the elections in Maharashtra and other states took place, and during that time a story on - "Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan's campaign', were done. The Hindu has raised an issue on this story and said this is a "paid news".

According to The Hindu, CM gave money to some newspapers for advertising but he received coverage worth much more in newspapers. In the light of paid ads Chavan was getting stories done for publicity, which would help him in elections.

Yesterday i.e. December 15, the sub-committee of Press Council of India (PCI) held a meeting to take up a complaint by a journalists union from Andhra Pradesh alleging that owners and editors of dailies in the state accepted money from political parties and individual candidates for coverage during the elections.

In a meeting the PCI disapproved the fact that newspapers passing off advertisements or doing "paid news'.

A PCI member said, "The PCI strongly objects to the paid news phenomenon. We will come up with recommendations which will be sent to the government for being implemented as guidelines."

As per a media source on December 2, the volume of advertising in dailies during the Maharashtra polls had declined by around one-fifth compared with 2004, when elections were last held in the state.