Editors Guild of India has expressed shock and disbelief at the manner in which the Group of Ministers (GoM) has prepared a report with an embedded toolkit to control the narrative about the government in the media.
The Editors Guild of India has asked the ruling dispensation at the Centre to safeguard constitutional values of freedom of expression and to make it clear that it is committed to the plurality of views in the media.
The Editors Guild of India in a statement pointed out the GoM, comprising five Cabinet and four Ministers of State, had been constituted by the government in mid-2020 without any provocation and at a time when various press freedom and democracy indices show a rapid slide.
The Editors Guild of India said the report, which was prepared at the end of 2020 and has recently emerged in media, further “illustrates the government’s increasingly draconian attitude against any critique and inquiry by the press”.
Stating the suggestions from the GoM report hint at increased surveillance and targeting of writers and journalists who depart from the government’s narrative, the Editors Guild of India said one of the more disturbing instances is the suggestion by a Union Minister that refers to developing a “strategy to neutralise the people who are writing against the Government without facts and set false narratives/spread fake news”.
The Editors Guild of India further said such observations in the absence of any clarity on what will constitute fake news and the process to be followed “smack of an intention to simply muzzle any criticism of the government”.
The Editors Guild of India asserted since the report was made public, some of those named have denied any involvement in its drafting or stated that they were part of any such processes.