The News Broadcasters Association has asked the information and broadcasting ministry to exempt and exclude traditional television news and its extended presence on digital news platforms from the scope of the new IT rules.

In a letter to the union information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar, the association of news channels stated that it is already “sufficiently regulated” by various laws, statutes, guidelines, codes and regulations.

The NBA also expressed its concerns about the IT rules and its “applicability to the digital medium of the linear television channels of the members of NBA.”

If the new IT rules are extended to the digital media of these organisations, the NBA said, it would result in duplication of the “adjudicatory and redressal mechanism resulting in the creation of parallel adjudicatory bodies” and the administrative regulations will make it “virtually impossible for small or medium-sized traditional news media organizations to survive.”

It said that the majority of the content hosted on digital platforms is a replica of content that is already part of the broadcast and has passed the litmus test of being compliant to the various regulations. It further requested that until the pending matters in high courts that challenge the new IT rules are adjusted upon and decided, the rules should be kept in “abeyance/suspension” specifically with regard to the members of NBA a they already had a self-regulatory body for the same purpose (the News Broadcasting Standards Authority).

The NBA also stated that the new IT rules “has certain deficiencies” and includes terms such as “half-truths”, “good taste”, “decency” – words that are “vague and ambitious.” The association further said that the new rules should not enact “excessive regulations for the digital medium in order that a level playing field be maintained with the traditional electronic news media.”

The I&B ministry had issued a notice to digital news websites and OTT platforms on Wednesday, asking about their compliance status with the new IT rules.

In March, the Digital News Publishers Association, which comprises print and TV media “with a digital presence”, had met with Javadekar and asked the government to let “treat them differently” from digital-only media houses under the IT rules.

Digital news organisations have already challenged the new IT rules. In February, Digipub News India Foundation wrote to Javadekar and electronics and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, arguing that the rules give the government vast powers that run counter to the principle of freedom of expression enshrined in the Indian constitution.