Jammu and Kashmir govt. proposes draft policy for the accreditation of news agencies

The Jammu and Kashmir (JK) government has submitted a draft policy for media accreditation that sets guidelines for defining and identifying news agencies. These guidelines include a social media policy as well. Under the proposed guidelines, an organisation calling itself a news agency will need to meet a number of criteria. A news agency will need to show at least 100 paid subscribers and 10,000 page views a day. It will also need to have been in operation for at least 5 years, show a news agency, offer a portfolio of news worthy stories from the past year and have a registered domain name valid for at least 5 terms from the date of submission of the application for accreditation. These details were revealed by Information Director Shahid Iqbal Choudhary to The Indian Express via email. The aim of the policy is to separate accredited news agencies from “rumourmongers” and help the government identify sources of, essentially, fake news. The policy has reportedly been in the public domain until 31 December 2016 and has received comments from various JK press associations and other concerned parties. This can be seen as the government’s method of fighting fake news and rumours that have allegedly plaguing the state on social media. WhatsApp is not included in this “empanelment” of news media, adds the report.