TV channels undecided on govt advisory

NEW DELHI: Television news channels are still undecided on how to go about dealing with the advisory issued to them by the Government on coverage post the Mumbai terror attacks.
    
Their meeting scheduled for Friday to take a decision on the Information and Broadcasting Ministry's advisory - which asked them not to show gory scenes, replay the tragedy and not to show India as a demoralised nation - could not take place.
    
The channels' industry body - News Broadcasters Association (NBA) - refused to comment on the issue. In the light of two written and one oral advisories sent to news channels by the ministry over their last week's coverage of Mumbai terror attacks, the NBA had held a meeting yesterday where it had decided to raise the issue with Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, while rejecting the advisories.
    
"It was decided that apart from meeting the PM over the issue, we had also decided to reject the advisories of the ministry and also reached a consensus that all future decisions would be taken unitedly by all the NBA constituents," an industry source said, adding that NBA was supposed to respond to the advisories by Friday.

However, it failed to meet, and the NBA secretary general Annie Joseph when contacted for her reaction to yesterday's decisions, said, "I don't want to comment on it (advisory) ...there has been no such decision regarding the advisory by us."
    
Even television channels refused to comment on the advisory saying that NBA was their representative body, which is authorised to comment on the issue.