Highlighting the "irresponsible" conduct of certain news channels while covering clashes in Kanpur, the Editors Guild of India (EGI) on Wednesday, 8 June, asked them to pause and take a critical look at their attempts to increase viewership and revenues amid the clashes.
"EGI demands that these channels pause and take a critical look at what they have done by giving legitimacy to divisive and toxic voices that has made the national discourse coarse and the gap between communities is unbridgeable," the guild said in a statement.
It also called for strict vigilance by broadcasting companies and journalists, arguing that the "unnecessary embarrassment" caused to the country because of the violence could have been prevented if certain news channels had been mindful of the country's constitutional commitment to secularism along with journalistic ethics and guidelines of the Press Council of India.
Violence broke out in several areas of Kanpur on 3 June, when some people tried to force shopkeepers to bring down shutters following Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Nupur Sharma's comments against Prophet Muhammad
TV Channels 'Deliberately' Targeted Vulnerable Groups: EGI
"The Editors Guild of India is disturbed by the irresponsible conduct of some national news channels for deliberately creating circumstances that target vulnerable communities by spewing hatred towards them and their beliefs," the guild asserted.
"Expectedly, there was a riot in Kanpur accompanied by an unprecedented trenchant reaction from many countries that were offended by the remarks of the ruling party spokespersons," the guild further said, adding that in their "angry" statements they wondered about India's commitments to human rights and freedom of religion.
Iterating that the incident, which caused unnecessary embarrassment to the country, could have been avoided if some TV outlets had been mindful of Constitutional values, the guild said that the channels' desire to increase viewership and profit seemed to have been inspired by the values of Radio Rwanda, whose "incendiary" broadcasts caused a genocide in the African country.
"The media is in place to strengthen the Constitution and the law and not break it through sheer irresponsibility and absence of accountability," it further added.
On Sunday, the BJP suspended Sharma and expelled Naveen Jindal from party's primary membership, after widespread outrage from middle-eastern countries against the spokesperson's remarks on the Prophet.
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