LS panel gives clean chit to media in cash-for-query scam

"The media is in no way to blame for exposing genuine wrong doing."

This was what the Lok Sabha Inquiry Committee, which went into the 'cash-for-query' scam, said on the sting operation exposing corruption among MPs aired by a television news channel last week.

The committee, headed by senior Congress MP Pawan Kumar Bansal, endorsed the view of a report of the Committee of the British House of Commons on Standards in Public Life under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan. "A free press using fair techniques of investigative journalism is an indispensable asset to our democracy," the House of Commons Committee had held.

Complete Coverage: Cash for query scam

It noted that, "We would prefer more acknowledgement from the media that the overwhelming majority of public servants work hard and have high standards. We would prefer more recognition of the value of our democratic mechanisms and dangers of undermining them.

"But we do not hold the media in any way to blame for exposing genuine wrongdoing. They have a duty to enquire - coupled with a duty to do so responsibly and in that way we can contribute to the preservation of standards in public life".

Stung by the way MPs are being made a "commercial product" in sting operations, a demand was made in the Lok Sabha Wednesday for an inquiry into the motives behind the media expose and action against journalists involved in it.