Media Laws and Ethics Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The court held that airwaves constitute public property and must be utilized for advancing public good.

In Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting v. Cricket Association of Bengal (1995), the Supreme Court ruled that airwaves are public property, to be used for the public good under regulation by a public authority, and that the right to free speech under Article 19(1)(a) includes the right to receive and impart information. It asked the government to set up an independent authority to regulate broadcasting.

The other options state the opposite: the court said airwaves are public property, that free speech includes receiving and imparting information, and that the Telegraph Act of 1885 was inadequate for modern broadcasting.

Answer: C

Deception may be practised only when the reason for deception is disclosed alongside the information.

Codes of journalistic ethics, such as that of the Society of Professional Journalists, discourage deception in newsgathering but allow it as a last resort when information of vital public interest cannot be obtained any other way, and they require journalists to explain to readers why deception was used when the story is published.

Avoiding detection or selling more copies are not ethical justifications, and saying it should never be practised ignores the narrow exception that such codes recognise.

Answer: B

Gifts to media people at press conferences are not mandatory, but done very often.

No law or professional code requires an organisation to give gifts to journalists at a press conference, but in practice press kits often come with souvenirs or small gifts, a widespread custom in Indian public relations. Ethics codes such as those of the Press Council of India and of PR associations caution against gifts that could influence coverage.

Gifts are not illegal as such, they are not compulsory, and the claim that they are never given does not match practice, so the other options are wrong.

Answer: B

By January 2019 the Constitution had been amended 103 times.

The 103rd Amendment, passed by Parliament in January 2019 and notified on 12 January, provided up to 10% reservation in education and public employment for economically weaker sections. The 101st Amendment (2016) had introduced the GST and the 102nd (2018) gave constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes.

98, 94 and 101 are earlier counts, so 103 is the total as of January 2019.

Answer: B

Fair price is not part of the ASCI code.

The ASCI Code for Self-Regulation in Advertising has four main chapters: honest representation (truthful claims), non-offensiveness to public decency, against harmful products or situations, and fairness in competition (no unfair comparison or imitation).

Honest representation, against harmful products and fair in competition are all chapter headings of the code. Pricing is not something the ASCI code regulates.

Answer: A

Copyright essentially means the recognition of the ownership rights of authors in their own published works.

Copyright is a legal right given to the creators of original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, films and sound recordings. In India it is governed by the Copyright Act, 1957, and gives the owner exclusive rights to reproduce, publish, adapt, translate and communicate the work, for a limited period.

It is the opposite of a right to copy freely, it is not limited to turning films into books, and it protects the work regardless of any judgement of its aesthetic worth.

Answer: B

The 'Gagging Act' was the Vernacular Press Act.

Lord Lytton's Vernacular Press Act of 1878 allowed the government to demand security from Indian-language newspapers, confiscate presses and suppress papers that published 'seditious' material, while exempting English-language papers. Indian opinion attacked it as the Gagging Act, and Lord Ripon repealed it in 1882.

The Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931 and the Indian Penal Code also restricted the press, and 'Indian Press Code' is not an Act, but the nickname belongs to the 1878 Act.

Answer: A

Yes, she should treat the clip as she would any other published material and cite it.

The clip is someone else's work, published on an engineering website. Using it in a presentation without acknowledging its creator is plagiarism, whatever route it took to reach her.

That her lecturer posted it on the Learning Management System does not change who made it: the lecturer is a channel, not the author, so neither 'it was provided by her lecturer' nor 'it is on the LMS' removes the duty to cite. Asking the lecturer's permission is beside the point, since the lecturer does not own the clip and permission is not the same thing as attribution.

Answer: C

'Restricted for students' is not an Indian film certificate.

The Central Board of Film Certification issued four categories at the time of the exam: U, unrestricted public exhibition; UA, unrestricted exhibition subject to parental guidance for children below 12; A, restricted to adults; and S, restricted to members of a specialised group, such as doctors or scientists.

So the first, second and fourth options are real categories. There is no certificate restricting a film to students; the S category concerns specialised professional audiences.

Answer: B

The first was The Hindu.

In 2006 The Hindu appointed K. Narayanan as its Readers' Editor, an internal news ombudsman independent of the editorial hierarchy who takes up readers' complaints about accuracy and fairness and publishes corrections and a regular column. It was the first such appointment by an Indian newspaper.

The office is modelled on press ombudsmen elsewhere, such as at the Washington Post and The Guardian. The Times of India, Amar Ujala and The Indian Express had no such ombudsman before The Hindu, which is why they are wrong.