It was some time in 2014 when I was reporting on the Hot News case at the Delhi High Court that I received a call from the founder of another digital blog/publication. He had called to discuss the creation of an online publication association, because his publication had received a legal notice. For some reason, he felt that being regulated and a part of an association would provide him with better protection against harassment. The interest in forming an association for online publishers is not new. What is surprising about traditional news publishers, including the Times of India, Hindustan Times, India Today, Indian Express, etc forming the Digital News Publishers Association, is that they didn't need to. All of them are already a part of other media associations and groups, and if at all any protection is provided for publishers by associations, they clearly didn't need it. Not a single digital-only news publisher is a part of the founding group. Even though they say that they are open to others joining them, it seems as if they didn't think it important enough to have at least a few on board. Perhaps the confusion might have been around which digital-only publications to invite, or maybe they've taken the same approach as COAI, where telecom operators are core members, and everyone else is an associate. In either case, the exclusion of digital-only publishers from a digital news publishers association is poor form from the founding team. Why have they done this? Even…
