NEW DELHI // The practice of paid news in the Indian media has "undermined the essence of a democratic process", according to a parliamentary report.
The report, compiled by India's Standing Committee on Information Technology and submitted to parliament last month, describes how politicians and corporations purchase positive news coverage.
In particular the committee cited instances during elections, revealing in one case that 61 candidates had admitted to paying for favourable coverage in newspapers and television channels during December's state elections in Gujarat.
The report comes as India's major parties move into campaign mode ahead of next year's national elections.
It recommended that laws "be amended to make incidence of paid news a punishable electoral malpractice". But the government, it said, was "dithering on this important policy initiative".
The report also raised the possibility of creating a government watchdog to check the practice of paid news, rather than trusting the media to self regulate.
"Such a body can be set up only by an act of parliament after the government acts on the recommendations of the report," said Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, an independent journalist and media critic.
"But there are hundreds of parliamentary committees whose well-meaning recommendations are never acted upon, and this might well be one of them."
The government will respond to the findings within two months, said an official with the information and broadcasting ministry.
The parliamentary committee, which was formed in 2010 after instances of paid news emerged during the 2009 national elections, drew upon existing reports from the information ministry and also solicited testimonies from journalists, experts and election officials.
The report found that paid news was widespread in politics, citing anecdotal evidence by journalists as well as politicians and political campaign managers.
But the specifics of such transactions were difficult to describe without "recorded documentation that would firmly establish" money had changed hands between news media, advertisers and political parties and candidates.
In the report, P Sainath, the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, who had highlighted incidents of paid news during the 2009 elections, also pointed out how media houses offered "packages" to businesses and corporations.
He used the example of a deal to cover the launch of a new car.
"From days in advance 'mood pieces' or 'colour pieces' on the vehicle begin to appear under the by-lines of … journalists and photographers," he wrote.
"Around the time of the launch, the car pops up, seemingly by coincidence, during the news bulletins of a channel or on the news pages of a major daily."
Such packages, he claimed, were also sold to Bollywood production companies, whose films were assured publicity as well as favourable reviews.
Although the committee did not itself cite any specific publications or television channels, it quoted a 2010 report by the Press Council of India, a self-regulatory body with limited powers. The report mentioned Bennett, Coleman & Co, which publishes the Times of India and the Economic Times and owns a television news channel.
It cited a service called Medianet, which it said "openly offers to send journalists to cover product launches or personality-related events" in exchange for money.
Last month's report also cited a scheme in which media companies accepted shares in companies in exchange for "advertisements, space and favourable coverage".
Ravi Dhariwal, the chief executive of Bennett, Coleman & Co, denied that his company's newspapers and television channels accepted payments for news coverage.
Medianet content was always marked clearly and was restricted to the newspapers' advertising supplements, he said. In the main sections of the Times of India, he said: "There is no confusion. There is no paid content. Never."
An executive at HT Media, which publishes the Hindustan Times, acknowledged freely that the company took equity stakes in firms in return for advertising. The executive, who did not wish to be identified, pointed out that the practice was common in Indian media.
"But the dividing line is strong, and our editors don't know the companies in which we have stakes," she said. "So it isn't like these companies receive overwhelmingly positive coverage."
