The Report acknowledges challenges in defining paid news, cites instances of manifestation of paid news. It also traces the reasons for rise in instances of paid news, the lack of powers with the regulators and need for regulatory overhaul, censures the MoIB for its failure to establish a strong mechanism to check for paid news, and noted the lack in effectiveness of the penal provisions and the concentration of media ownership. It also found the Department of Advertising and Visual Publicity’s existing policy amongst various media houses to be unsatisfactory. It takes note of the Justice Leveson Report and other international models, and asked the MoIB to consider the same.

This is the report referenced by the Standing Committee on Information Technology in the previous resource. 

TRAI’s Consultation Paper on cross-media ownership issues, released after the matter had been referred to it by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.