Paid news is free speech

IN Media Watch Briefs | 23/05/2018

Paid news falls within the citizen's right to free speech and the Election Commission has no business trying to stop it, according to the Delhi High Court. ET reports that while the EC thinks paid news is a major challenge to conducting free and fair elections, and 15 cases of paid news were identified in the recently concluded Karnataka polls, the HC says the EC's remit is confined to the poll expenditure of a candidate, and not the content of the advertising s/he spends on.