NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday issued an advisory to private news channels to carry a date and timestamp on visuals of natural disasters and major accidents while reporting on such incidents.

The advisory, issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, noted that television channels provide continuous coverage of natural disasters, major accidents over several days but keep showing the footage from the day the incident took place.

The ministry argued that the footage shown by television channels several days after the accident or disaster does not necessarily reflect the real-time ground situation which leads to “unnecessary confusion and potential panic among viewers”.

Press Trust of India