The ToI reports that the GoI (now that rhymes) is thinking ( and that is an oxymoron) of accrediting internet journalists and bloggers. In a 5 years past its sell by date quote, the Principle Information Officer Shakuntala Mahawal said:

We are framing the rules for giving accreditation to dotcom journalists, including bloggers

dot com – i thought that the term was well and truly buried in 1999. Trust the GoI to ressurect it.
I can just imagine an irate blogger having a conversation with a patient government official on accreditation.

Blogger: my site is myopinion.org and I want to be accredited.
Govt. Official: but it is not a dot com and our rules say that only dot com bloggers can be accredited.
Blogger: it is the same
Govt. Official: But section 14, subsection 94 of the Post and Telegraph act of 1857 states that….
(sound track of blogger tearing out his/her hair)

And of course ToI compounds this by stating:

This augurs well for independent bloggers, or web loggers, who are increasingly being recognised the world over as cyber journalists.

I am not quite sure if bloggers, world over, are being looked at – or even act as- cyber journalists. There may be a few who are journalists and bloggers, but the majority of blogs are maintained by those across all professions.
Maybe, the error is in the mind of ToI. For over a decade its journalists have been publishing personal blogs in the name of news, so it automatically assumes that blogging is a subset of journalism. Well, it may be in the ToI – but not in the rest of the blogsphere.
Coming back to the Government accreditation, it should be fun seeing it getting implemented.

5 thoughts on “Accredited by the Government

  1. Does the Bloggers get effectively the same rights as that of a journalist? In U.S there was a recent judgment (APPLE vs Bloggers case) from one of its high courts which stated that the Bloggers are not Journalists and they do not have rights like to protect the identity of the source of information.

  2. Perhaps this is a move to monitor the blog postings.

    There is a real danger of this becoming a sort of licensing of Bloggers.

    Needs to be watched closely for details.

    Naavi

  3. It would be great if the Govt kept good distance from the internet. It is like you are a playing an innocent fun game and your Mummy wants to kill ur fun because you are having fun. Thats what I think Government is. FunKiller.

    (understod that cyber trade, identity protection r serious issues and attract govt. regulations and interventions)

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