Newspapers Selling Coverage to Candidates

This piece in today’s Wall Street Journal highlights the pressing problem of newspapers (mostly Hindi, Urdu, and Gujarati) selling positive or “not negative” coverage to candidates this election cycle. I’m not sure what the law looks like in this area, but it does seem this is something the Election Commissioners Office could step in to crack down on, and the article suggests they may be considering doing this. Otherwise, the newspapers should start warning readers that they are adverts whose articles are up for sale – that just seems like basic consumer protection law.

Written by
Nick Robinson
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1 comment
  • Whatever happened to Election commission’s stricutre banning exit polls. As this blog highlighted swapan dasgupta’s blog and today’s ToI report. If election commission could not act on this, how can it possibly act on unprovable reports.
    We need to have a serious scrutiny of the efficieny and effectiveness of election commission.