Update: ANI reports that the press release regarding changes to the Accreditation norms has been withdrawn, following a directive from the Prime Minister. Earlier: A committee "senior officers, reps of PCI, NBA, IBF set up for regulations/ policy for digital broadcasting & News portals", the Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani tweeted yesterday, responding to journalist Suhasini Haider's comment that the order released yesterday suggests that the government only intends to penalise only those who are accredited - the mainstream media - and that this doesn't extend to websites that "openly flout journalistic ethics". Committee comprising of senior officers , reps of PCI, NBA, IBF set up for regulations/ policy for digital broadcasting & News portals. Till such time the regulation is not implemented rules cannot be enforced for news portals by industry.— Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) April 2, 2018 Irani's point that there is no scope for regulation of digital media unless there are regulations for it is technically, quite correct. However, note that there was accreditation for online news: online publications like Rediff have accredited journalists. Back in 2014, we had mentioned these guidelines while reporting on Newslaundry applying for approval for FDI. That doesn't document is no longer online. It used to be at http://mib.nic.in/WriteReadData/documents/in2.pdf. In that context, the ministers statement that there are no rules governing accreditation of online journalists isn't exactly correct. We checked, and on the 20th of March 2018, a committee was reconstituted by the I&B ministry as the "Central Press Accreditation committee".…
