ADVERTISEMENT POLICY
It is a stark fact that the entire Media industry in Bihar depends mainly on the state government advertisements for the major share of its ad-revenue. Being an industrially backward state, it surely lacks private commercial ads here. The share of business ads are considered to be quite necessary for the survival of the purely business-centric media houses. This fact is recognized both by the media houses as well as the state government. In such an ad-market condition the state government enjoys a monopolistic status. Taking advantage of its monopolistic status in handing out advertisements , the government is ostensibly found to be using this status as a lever to arm-twist the media houses with an eye to compel newspaper house managements to willy-nilly function as its undeclared mouthpiece.

Such a monopolistic status of the state government naturally demands a total surrender of the principles of press freedom, its sense of critical assessment and also of the ethical journalism which is a sine qua non for any independent media to deliver its duty as a "watchdog of the society". But the visiting PCI Fact Finding Team Bihar after conducting a detailed inquiry is now of the opinion that an appropriate atmosphere for the functioning of an ethical journalism working as a real “watchdog of the society” seems to be absent in the state of Bihar. Under such an ad market situation, as presently prevailing in Bihar the newspaper managements have been found to be more than willing to surrender all the norms and ethics of journalism. All this is to achieve what is called in managerial terms “adrevenue targets”. But this ad-revenue target is being achieved - at the cost of the healthy development and well-being of the society, of democratic values and more so of the established norms and principles of the ethical journalism.

This profit making corporate ideology bereft of social responsibility and legality, through the managerial bosses of the newspaper houses, has effectively reached into the newsrooms of almost all the newspapers in Bihar and has left a chilling effect leading to a situation of undeclared “selfcensorship”.

This undeclared self-censorship is applied in the newsrooms in order to ensure that any material which has a potential to cause inconvenience for the state government in any way is prevented to go in print. An objective analysis of newspapers makes it quite clear that news-reports related to social audit of the state government run schemes and plans are a rarity in the newspapers of Bihar. Only those uncomfortable news-items go into the print, which might cost creditability of the newspapers. The management of the ‘friendly’ newspaper houses of the state, which includes almost all the prominent dailies of Bihar- both Hindi and English - is being issued advertisements irregularly, which can be termed gross misuse of public funds. The state government Information and Public Relations Department (IPRD) –deliberately and conveniently look the other way, while issuing advertisements even to those newspapers’ split editions, which are being published in violation of rules from different parts of the state. Almost all the split districts editions of the prominent newspapers in Bihar were found by the members of this Fact Finding Team to be being published in clear contravention to Sections 5 (2C), (3), 19 C, 6, 8(B), 14, 15 of the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 and Section 10 of the Registration of Newspaper Central Rules 1956.

It is quite obvious that without active connivance and co-operation of the state government Information and Public Relations Department (IPRD), such illegality could not continue and that too for years together. Media brands including The Times Of India, Hindustan, Dainik Jagran, Prabhat Khabar, Roznama Rashtriya Sahara have all been found prima facie guilty of publishing their newspapers in utter violation of Sections 5 (2C), (3), 19 C, 6, 8(B), 14, 15 of the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 and Section 10 of the Registration of Newspaper Central Rules 1956.