No need to fear about media GO, says govt Advisor

Amaravati: Seeking to allay fears of harassment of media by the government in the wake of issue of controversial GO MS No 2430, Advisor to the Government on Public Policy Kondubhotla Ramachandra Murthy said there was nothing to fear about the order as it was intended only to act as a deterrent to those media houses which publish fabricated news.

Murthy, who served various news organisations in different positions including Editor for 47 years, has recently been appointed as the advisor with Cabinet rank. Addressing a press conference at the Secretariat here on Thursday, Ramachandra Murthy explained that he himself had attended courts during the last five years in five cases lodged by the previous government headed by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu.

The advisor informed that the present government had not taken any offensive decision against any individual or a particular news house. He said that the present government has been working with a motive of decentralisation of powers.

As part of it, the state government established the Village Secretariats. Now the government has taken the same decision in delegating powers to the secretaries in the AP Secretariat.

He explained that the GO only empowers the secretaries to fight legally and it did not mandate suppression of independent media which show accountability in publishing the news.

Quoting the research works of Noam Chomsky, he said that some media houses had been working to manufacture consent and some other for dissent. He explained that when a media house does not like the political party is in power, then it was publishing the false and fabricated news and thereby spreading falsities.

When the media house likes the political party which is in power, then it publishes news which create consent towards the government. He explained that here in our state some media houses had been publishing wrong news with vested political interests to blame the government and thereby creating negativity towards the ruling party.

He added that such news organisations have not been even carrying the rejoinders, even though the officer concerned had been reacting to the wrong news. He said that the rejoinders must be published in the newspapers where the wrong news was published and the television channels were supposed to telecast it.

Ramachandra Murthy added that like any other individual, the government also has the right to protect itself from the false propaganda. Hence, the government brought this GO by empowering all the secretaries to move to courts against the news organisations which publish wrong news.

He also added that some of the media organisations have not been following basics in journalism. He explained that if any journalist or a media organisation wants to publish some news of public interest against the government or any official, then they must take the quote from the involved person, but this principle was not being followed these days.