PANAJI: Goa Legislature Secretariat has framed a new set of rules for the accreditation of journalists covering proceedings of the legislative assembly which place harsh strictures on who can cover the assembly proceedings.
The guidelines which have been uploaded on the official website of the Goa Vidhan Sabha, have been slammed by the journalists union who have said they will exclude a majority of journalists and newspapers from covering the proceedings.
“The Newspapers published in Goa shall have a minimum daily circulation of 15,000 copies for admission to the Goa Legislative Assembly Press Gallery. However, in special cases, the Secretariat may accommodate requests for temporary passes from such media organizations even if their circulation is below the stipulated limit,” the new guidelines state while adding that a multi-edition newspaper shall be treated as a single entity for the purpose of admission.
The guidelines which come at a time of national debate on the freedom of the press over the central Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s attempts to curb fake news, also mandate that to be eligible, a newspaper shall have a minimum uninterrupted standing of three years and that all newspapers of a group/holding company would be considered as a single entity for issuance of passes, irrespective of region and language.
The guidelines also ban representatives of weeklies, fortnightlies and monthlies saying they will not be admitted to the Goa Legislature Assembly Press Gallery.
News portals and websites are the worst hit with the guidelines stipulating that should have a minimum annual revenue of ₹10-lakh from its news portion only, besides having 10,000 page views per day of its news portion.
The guidelines also mandate that “in the event of a news portal/ website found involved in any activity perceived as cybercrime, now or in future, all accreditations given to the representatives of that News Portal/ Website shall be withdrawn immediately.”
