The ministry has also written to the Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF) and the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) to advise its members to refrain

ACE ANCHOR and Editor-in-Chief-cum-CEO of CNN-IBN, Rajdeep Sardesai, once commented that bad news was good news for the media. Sardesai agreed that there had been glamorisation of news lately and that newsmen had become larger than the news itself. Welcome to the new-age media that loves controversies and promotes voyeurism. In fact, the Indian news media, specially the news channels, love the tabloid culture. To quote Sardesai, “Today’s newsmen are very good with wars, bomb blasts, floods, earthquake, sex scandals and the like. They are not good with day-to-day news. News has to essentially piggyback on entertainment.”
Currently, channels are repeatedly flashing ghastly scenes from recent terrorist attacks, Bihar floods and of course, for a change, Olympic medal winner and boxer Vijendra Kumar (for his model-like looks and sex appeal). There have been forty-three bomb blasts in the country in the last four months, devastating floods in Bihar and Orissa, communal violence in Orissa and Karnataka and the like, which in turn have contributed to the news channel boom. The formula is simple: any event or information that has the potential to break the monotony of real life is considered “breaking news”. Not to forget, it has to be presented with a dash of sensationalism. Obviously, the video of a semi-nude child, who does not know how to swim, but is still ready to drown in the flooded village for a piece of bread makes a better visual then ten children being rescued by the life-guards! Manufacturing sensational news items through sting operations, manipulation and pure exaggeration are now passé for the Indian news channels. The emerging trend in news coverage in India is one of exploiting and cultivating the regressive mindset of a large section of the population. This ghastly trend is undoubtedly detrimental to the future of India.
One of the recent and most glaring examples of such incorrect and horrifying reporting was the one about the so-called impending Doomsday because of the Big Bang experiment undertaken recently. Instead of looking at it as a scientific development, Doomsday stories only succeeded in scaring naive viewers and annoying those who saw through the façade, thanks to the news channels. The repercussions were so powerful that the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry of the government of India had to issue advisories to India TV and Aaj Tak for spreading "misinformation, fear and horror" among people. It advised the channels to exercise restraint in presenting the issues.