A responsible press is one which subordinates self-interest and makes the amount. The press in newly developing countries like India must decide to formulate and follow a pattern that is flexible and changes with time.
India is already considered to be one of the nations which have a sufficiently developed successful media; yet, there is need for the application of ethical principles to publications. Responsibility can never be achieved without an ethical foundation.
The development of a responsible press depends on how well the concept of the press is understood by the public and the Government. There is need for intelligent planning of the objective and the goals, rules of operation, code of ethics, self-discipline etc. to go a long way towards establishing a responsible press which may not need official restrictions.
The term “social responsibility” was first used by the Hutchins Commission appointed by the British Government in 1947. It was subsequently elaborated by the so-called Four Theories of the Press which have come to govern modern press media.
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Proponents of social responsibility recognise that it is closely related to the libertarian press system, but they see it as going beyond the free press theory, in that it places many moral and ethical restrictions on the press. It is a restrictive theory although its advocates do not stress this point. Instead of emphasising freedom, it stresses responsibility to the society of which it is a part.
If this responsibility is not forthcoming voluntarily, then in time it will be absolutely necessary that it be imposed on the communication media by the government. According to the Hutchins group, press freedom is limited by a social responsibility to report facts accurately and in a meaningful context. Since such thinking inevitably leads to the advocacy of a regulatory system to watch the actions of the press and to keep it functioning properly (i.e., to keep it socially responsible), the Hutchins Commission suggested that some type of government regulation might be needed to assure that the press accept its responsibility.
The social responsibility theory implies recognition by the media that they must perform a public service to warrant their existence. The main parts of the commission’s report which seemed to have antagonized many editors and publishers were those that instigated possible government involvement in the press system.
Four Theories of the Press
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According to Four Theories of the press a duty to one’s conscience is the primary basis of the right of free expression under social responsibility theory.
This is all very well, but what relation does this have to the question of government intervention if the need is great? It would seem that duty to one’s conscience is extremely relative and that a newspaper espousing the cause of Shri Morarji Desai, for example, could do so in as good conscience as would the newspaper espousing the tenets of Mrs. Indira Gandhi.
Which is responsible to society? To what or which society? To which segment of what society? During the last Lok Sabha elections many segments of our press were described as irresponsible by persons on various sides of issues. Who would determine which segment or segments were right or responsible? The government presumably would do so.
The western press has been proceeding on unregulated initiative until now. But the Hutchins group and its followers think it questionable, if not unwise, for this to continue, for the citizen has a moral right to information and an urgent need for it and the implication is that the western press in not giving it to the citizen. A moral right to what information?
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This is a significant question. Or probably a better one: To whose information? Evidently the commission did not think that a pluralistic information system is good enough. Under such a system, which we now have at least to a large degree, the citizen does get information and a wealth of it. Admittedly, there are gaps in it. But any one vaguely familiar with information theory and semantics knows that there will always be gaps, and if -different reporters observe and communicate it, there will always be -variant versions.