Sport

Media guidelines: problems remain

NEW DELHI: If you thought the Indian Premier League (IPL) had signed a peace pact with the media on Tuesday, with all the stakeholders satisfied with the revised accreditation guidelines, leaving just the action to unfold in the middle, you were wrong.

Though most of the contentious points in the accreditation guidelines were either removed or modified, paving the way for an agreement at a meeting between the IPL and the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), in Mumbai on Tuesday, there are issues that are still bothering sections of the media.

The most important and debatable clause relates to the accreditation of photographers and the conditions put on them. News agencies will not be able to provide match pictures to dedicated cricket websites. The Press Trust of India (PTI) has stated that this clause is discriminatory. It will, however, cover the event, beginning on April 18, under protest.

On Wednesday, the international agencies were contemplating boycotting the tournament in protest against the discriminatory guidelines.

Cricinfo, the world’s largest cricket website, claiming 10 million “regular users”, is agitated over this discrimination. The television news channels are also concerned about the restrictions imposed on them, in accreditation formalities as well as supply of “footage”.

The News Broadcasters Association (NBA), the umbrella body for major national news channels, has threatened a blackout unless IPL addresses its concerns.

The IPL’s headaches are far from over.

“Basically, all conditions should have been removed. There are still areas of concern to us,” said the Secretary-General of the Editors Guild of India, K.S. Sachidananda Murthy

“The accreditation restrictions (of having just one crew comprising a reporter and a cameraman) are impractical. We agree with IPL that we cannot have camera crews shooting actual match. That is standard practice. But unlike newspapers we have to report throughout the day. We need a minimum of two crews,” the spokesman for NBA, Chintamani Rao, told The Hindu on Wednesday.

The NBA had put forward a set of conditions which, in its opinion, could be “workable”. Now, the IPL has invited NBA to have a discussion. The Editors Guild of India has supported the stand taken by NBA.

“All restrictions should be lifted,” says Sambit Bal, Editor of Cricinfo.

“Obviously it (restriction on agencies in supplying photos to cricket portals) is targeted at us. It is completely discriminatory. It is staggering that we are not seen as a legitimate cricket publication. We are asking for our basic journalistic rights,” said Bal.

It is inexplicable that for an event that has already breached several “highs” in merchandising and franchising, so many loose ends should have been left hanging till just days before the start of the tournament, leading to a situation where the IPL Chairman and Commissioner, Lalit Modi, is engaged in a series of meetings to resolve one ticklish issue after the other.

Modi was quoted by Cricinfo on Tuesday: “We are not blacking out cricket-specific portals. The American company to which we have sold the portal rights will offer photographs at a reasonable price. I can’t reveal the name of the company but everything will be clear in the next 24 hours.”

It is obvious the root of the problem is money. An IPL official had been quoted as saying in a recent report that the portal rights had been sold for $50 million. Apparently no one cared about existing cricket portals or other general websites or the compulsions of news agencies to supply pictures to all their clients without discrimination.

One clause that has not been subjected to much scrutiny comes towards the end of the guidelines. Clause 7 says:

“Any proposed use of Match photography by an Accredited Party and / or his principal for Commercial Purposes (except syndication to publications) is subject to the prior written consent of IPL.”

Will this mean an agency, either a news agency or a photo agency like Getty Images, will not be able to sell a picture of the IPL, say a year from now, to a new publication or a portal?

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