Media Certification and Monitoring Committee
Also called: MCMC · Topic: Electoral Reforms: Money, Criminalisation and Simultaneous Elections · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) is a body set up by the Election Commission at the district and state levels. It has two jobs. First, it pre-certifies political advertisements, which means checking and approving them before they run on TV, radio or social media. Second, it watches the media and flags suspected paid news, which is news or analysis published in return for money or favours. MCMCs matter because they help bring hidden media spending into the open.
Example
A party wants to run a campaign advertisement on a TV channel during an election, so it first gets the advertisement cleared by the MCMC. Suppose the MCMC later spots a newspaper running one-sided "news" stories praising a candidate, and it suspects paid news. The cost can then be added to that candidate's election expenses.
Don't confuse with
- Paid news: this is the wrong act itself, and the ECI counts it as election expenditure. The MCMC is the body that finds and flags paid news.
Related concepts
- Paid news
- Hate speech in elections
- Appeal on grounds of religion or caste
- Abhiram Singh case
- Hindutva case
- Freebies