Genuine Media Independence: Ownership, Funding, Disclosure
Mandate full disclosure of news-media ownership, cap cross-ownership of news and non-news businesses, and ban political-party-linked entities from holding news licences.
No name, email or phone collected. One click. Public count only.
The Demand
You cannot ask a newsroom to investigate a corporation that owns the newsroom. We demand a Media Independence Act that publishes ownership above 1%, caps cross-ownership of news and industrial businesses, and bans party-linked entities from holding news licences.
Why This Matters
India ranks in the bottom third of every credible global press-freedom index. The cause is not mysterious. It is the same three or four conglomerates that own the steel, the cement, the airport, the cricket franchise and, conveniently, the prime-time slot.
Free press is not a vibe. It is a structural condition. Concentration is its opposite.
Context
The phrase "godi media" entered the dictionary the same year cross-ownership audits stopped happening. Major TRAI and TRAI-adjacent recommendations from 2014 and 2018 on cross-media ownership remain unimplemented.
Other democracies have done this. The United Kingdom, Germany, and France all have explicit cross-ownership ceilings written into media law. So can India.
What Signing Does
The petition will be submitted to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Press Council of India, and the Standing Committee on Communications and IT. Signers will be counted, the count made public, and pressure applied.