ETHICAL STANDARDS AND ISSUES IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA: THE ANALYSIS OF ROLE, FUNCTIONS AND EFFECTIVENESS OF BROADCAST EDITORS ASSOCIATION (BEA)

Abstract

Violations of ethical guidelines, breach of public trust and corrupt practices like paid news are the challenges television news channels are facing these days. The questions on the credibility of media are the biggest concern for the medium. Because of this, Government tried to pull-up TV news industry in the name of regulation on many occasions, but the broadcast news industry has always been reluctant to have government control because it feels that it could harm its constitutional right of freedom of speech and expression. However, in response to this, the TV news industry decided to adopt the mechanism of Self-regulation to regulate itself. The Broadcast Editors Association (BEA) is one such body which is responsible to enforce self-regulation mechanism on the news channels. The editors of all the major news channels are the members of this body. It is an independent body responsible to maintain the high standards of the broadcast news community. In this paper, researcher by presenting case studies and the opinion of the experts would analyse the role, functions and effectiveness of BEA in the process of self-regulation and in maintaining the ethical codes of the industry.