[cr-india] Zambian CR refuses to air news from State broadcaster

[sajan venniyoor]

"Permission" to re-broadcast AIR News is still on the cards for Phase III
of commercial FM radio. In fact, when the ministry assures us that news
will be permitted sooner rather than later on community radio, I have a
lingering suspicion that they mean AIR News or some version thereof.

Of course, it's an offer we can refuse, as nothing in our CR Guidelines
forces us to re-broadcast government propaganda. At the very least, they
will have to pay us for it...  (The Bangladesh CR Guidelines, however, make
it mandatory for CR to re-broadcast programmes of *Bangladesh Betar *(Radio)
"when these are of national importance or of relevance to the people of the
area." They also have to re-broadcast "special programmes" like the
addresses of president and prime minister, national day celebrations etc.

(If similarly ordered to broadcast the address of our PM, do you suppose we
could announce "7, Race Course Road, New Delhi" before switching back to
our own programmes? Just a thought).

On the subject of broadcasting news on CR, my instinct is to argue for
dropping section 5(vi) of the Guidelines and for removing any reference to
news in the policy. News should be a given -- it is no more necessary to
say "news will be allowed on radio in India" than to say "men will be
allowed to wear trousers in the Republic of India".

Sajan


On 7 April 2014 06:53, Vinod Pavarala <vpavarala at gmail.com> wrote:

> This story from Zambia reminds us of the 'offer' of AIR news made by the
> Indian government last year to CR stations, in response to the demand to
> lift the ongoing ban on broadcast of news on community radio. Luckily, it
> was an offer the stations could turn down politely!
> Vinod
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Government directs community radio stations to join propaganda, MISA says
> NO!
>
> https://www.zambianwatchdog.com/government-directs-community-radio-stations-to-join-propaganda-misa-says-no/
>
> In a bid to increase propaganda for the PF, Government has directed
> community radio stations to start broadcasting by way of repeating the ZNBC
> network news.
>
> Butthe Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia chapter has
> opposed the move saying it does not make sense.
>
> Information Permanent secretary Bert Mushala announced the move, and if
> implemented it would mean that all community radio stations will be
> replicating the useless propaganda spread by ZNBC.
>
> Government has of lately been trying to gag community media through
> threats of license revocations and charging exorbitant license fees.
>
> MISA Zambia Acting chairperson Hellen Mwale said that the provision of
> news with a national character to community media would be going against
> the purpose for which Community Radio Stations were established.
>
> Mwale added that community media is meant to highlight issues pertaining
> in their localities. Most Community media houses fall under the umbrella
> body of MISA, which has been critical to government's media infringements
> in the country.
>
> Vinod Pavarala
> Professor & UNESCO Chair on Community Media
> Department of Communication
> University of Hyderabad
> Gachibowli, Hyderabad A.P. 500046
> India
> 91-40-23135501
> http://www.commuoh.in/
> http://www.uccommedia.in/
>
>
>
> Join the Community Radio Forum.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.mail.sarai.net/pipermail/cr-india_mail.sarai.net/attachments/20140407/dd8ec9ca/attachment.html>