VISAKHAPATNAM: Press Council of India chairman Justice G.N. Ray has urged print and electronic media to self-introspect and help building a strong nation and society free of hatred by denying terrorists ‘the oxygen of publicity’ to defeat the latter’s aim of spreading hate, terror, violence and disharmony.

Addressing a seminar on ‘Terrorism – new challenges and media’ organised by the Press Academy of Andhra Pradesh in association with the Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists and the Andhra University Department of Journalism and Mass Communications on the opening day of the two-day State council meetings of the union at the Andhra University here on Saturday, he said that in the event of terrorist attack, the media should refrain from giving sensational, exploitative and melodramatic reporting, a glimpse of which was witnessed during the recent attack in Mumbai.

The journalists have to be careful that the reporting does not create panic and fear amongst the countrymen and put the lives of the victims at risk and most important of all was not to feed strategic information to the terrorist outfits through ‘spot-reporting’. If the media failed to self-regulate, there was the danger of the Government’s pre-censorship, he warned.

He quoted the Rajua Sabha committee report, which observed that self-regulation was an ideal situation and might not be effective to regulate the media, particularly in the scenario of growing competition among the channels for supremacy in business of rating, and asked the Government to put in place Broadcasting Regulatory Authority under an Act of Parliament.

There should be a one uniform code for print and electronic media, for, ethics could not be different, he pointed out. He also wanted the media to know it was not free than any other citizen of India.

Mr. Ray released a book ‘Media reaches: Themes and Applications’ authored by Associate Professor of Journalism in AU, DVR Murthy, on the occasion.

Presiding over the seminar, the Academy chairman Devulapalli Amar felt media should observe restraint while reporting news on national security, for, it had a greater responsibility than ordinary citizen.

Vice-Chancellor of Andhra Univesity B. Satyanarayana felt there was no ‘Lakshmana Rekha’ is needed for journalists who have to cross it some times for good governance.

President of Indian Journalists Union Suresh Prasad Akhouri wanted TV journalists to be brought under the control of the PCI.

IJU Secretary General K. Sreenivas Reddy, Former Editor of Visalandhra C. Raghavachari, Channel Head of Zee Telugu R. Sailesh Reddy, Dean of A.U. Law College R. Venkata Rao, Executive Director of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant G.V.S. Prasad, Prof. P. Bobby Vardhan of AU Journalism TV 9 Inputs Editor Alapati Suresh Kumar, APUWJ president D. Somasundar also spoke.