Exclusive’ Tours: Press Information Bureau Accused of Bias, Nepotism and Lack of Transparency in Journalists’ Selection
Srinagar, Oct 7, KNT: The Press Information Bureau (PIB), the central government’s premier media outreach arm, is facing growing criticism for what many journalists describe as an entrenched culture of bias, opacity, and elitism in the way it conducts its official tours and press engagements. Journalists from Kashmir have accused the PIB of operating like a “closed club” where only a select few “blue-eyed” journalists are repeatedly chosen for official visits and interactions, while others are deliberately excluded.
Several senior journalists from the Valley said that PIB officials, instead of maintaining transparency and equal representation, have allegedly turned official media tours into personal leisure trips for a chosen set of individuals. These tours, often organized under the guise of promoting government schemes or national development programs, are now widely seen as exercises in favouritism.
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“It has become a routine pattern,” said a veteran Kashmiri journalist. “Every time PIB organizes a media exposure tour, the same faces appear. There are no announcements, no notifications, and no fair selection process. The rest of us only come to know when photographs of the trip start appearing on social media.”
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The discontent is not limited to field visits. Journalists allege that even press conferences of Union ministers are stage-managed, with PIB selectively inviting a handful of friendly faces while excluding senior and experienced reporters who might ask tough or region-specific questions. “Ministers are misled into believing they are addressing a representative cross-section of the Indian media. In truth, many attendees are not even active field reporters, they are handpicked by PIB officials who treat these events as their personal domain,” said another journalist from Srinagar.
Several working journalists accused the Bureau of being habitual offenders when it comes to fairness and inclusivity. The system, they said, rewards proximity rather than professionalism. “The PIB’s job is to facilitate media-government interaction, not to distribute perks or foreign-style junkets. The credibility of the Bureau is at stake if this culture of cronyism continues,” said a local bureau chief to the news agency Kashmir News Trust.
The resentment among journalists from Jammu and Kashmir has deepened over the years as the region remains almost entirely left out of these PIB-organized engagements. “Even the most senior journalists from Kashmir, with decades of credible reporting behind them, are ignored. The Bureau acts as if journalists from this region don’t exist,” remarked another senior scribe.
Journalists’ associations are now demanding a full inquiry into the functioning of the PIB’s media selection process. They have urged the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to introduce a transparent, rotational, and merit-based system for participation in national tours and official events.
“The PIB cannot continue to function as a fiefdom,” said one journalist. “If public money is being spent on these tours, every journalist should have equal opportunity to participate. The current system is discriminatory, unethical, and unbecoming of a national media institution.”
The growing chorus of criticism underscores a fundamental question, who exactly does the PIB serve: the Indian press or a privileged few within it? Unless addressed promptly, journalists warn, the Bureau’s credibility as the government’s official media interface could face irreparable damage. [KNT]
