Ethics in news coverage of IPLTwenty20

Photos

Afghanistan run a strong National Cricket Academy XI close

see larger image

uploaded by momand

News organizations no longer work the way they used to. Now, nobody can rest assured that they would definitely cover the biggest events even if they measure high up on a scale of newsworthiness. And, we are not talking of small news organizations or newspapers. We are talking of giant international news agencies such as the Associated Press headquartered in New York, United States of America; Reuters headquartered in London, United Kingdom; and, Agence France Presse headquartered in Paris, France to name a few.

The event in question is: The Indian Premiere League (Season-3) Twenty20 cricket matches being played in India at various locations across the country where up to four foreign players are allowed to play on each team. The “IPL Season-3” is the most happening cricketing event in the world at the moment. And, these matches are not being covered by any of the major international news agencies listed above.

The reason: the organizer of IPL Season-3, the Indian Premier League, has imposed restrictions on sale of match-related photographs to internet cricket websites. These restrictions were imposed in the inaugural season in 2008 as well. And, these news agencies did not cover the matches. When these restrictions were relaxed during IPL Season-2, all these news agencies made a beeline to cover them. Again, they did not cover the Champions League of Twenty20 which featured the top cricketing teams across the world for the same reason.

According to informed sources, even Getty Images, the only international photo agency, which entered into a contract with IPL for photo coverage does not seem to be making enough money to make up for coverage costs. The reason: there is no international news coverage of IPL-3 so there is little demand for photographs. Therefore, local newspapers have to cover these matches themselves or look for alternate sources for getting the pictures even after paying a hefty subscriptions to one or more of these international news agencies.

Cricket is no longer the long drawn five day test match which taxed the patience of the spectators and all those who followed the game alike. The Twenty20 format of cricket is fast moving and matches up to other popular sports such as Lawn Tennis, Soccer etc. since the duration of a Twenty20 match is less than four hours which is compares well with the above games.

This brings the ethics of news coverage into question. Can news agencies pick and choose from news events and cover only those events which bring direct financial benefits to them? Or, is there a question of ethics which should induce them to cover all newsworthy events and recover their operating costs from periodical subscriptions paid by member newspapers and other publications?

By blacking out important sports events are they not doing injustice to the organizers who have to consider their own financial viability in deciding on such issues? And, are they not depriving their own subscribers and readers across the world on news that everybody is interested in and they ought to be covering?