Modi and the Media
It’s no secret that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has some people in the media on his hit list, so to speak. In fact, the PMO keeps a list of such undesirables to ensure they are kept far away from him as much as possible. So, it was no surprise to see India Today’s much-hyped interview with the PM last week in Varanasi missing the media group’s most incisive and knowledgeable political expert, Rajdeep Sardesai. Instead, we had group owner Aroon Purie along with Modi groupie Rahul Kanwal and a female anchor from Aaj Tak to whom the interview was granted. Purie boasted that it was the gold standard of journalism but the truth is quite different. Before the interview, the PMO had made two demands—Rajdeep would not be on the show and the questions should steer clear of issues like demonetisation. Both demands were met but the interview itself got a lot of flak on social media from independent journalists.
The Inheritance of Loss
India’s pioneering English news channel NDTV had a sterling reputation of its key reporters and staff staying loyal to the channel despite more lucrative offers. That seems to be changing. Barkha Dutt’s departure was big news and then we had former CEO and anchor Vikram Chandra giving up anchoring assignments to focus on his own digital platform, Editorji. Now, another bright star leaves the firmament. Sunetra Choudhury, the channel’s political editor, has quit and joined Hindustan Times as National Political Editor, making a splashy and newsy debut with an interview with former PM Manmohan Singh where he says “multiple surgical strikes” were done during the tenure of the UPA government but alleged that never before had an Indian government needed to ride on the achievements of the Army as it is doing now. For Sunetra, professional life has come full circle—she started her career in a newspaper but the fact that she was a prominent face with NDTV for 16 years, suggests she was looking for greener pastures.
Unreliable News
Two Indian news websites, Postcard News and Indiatimes, are among the over 500 websites “spreading false or misleading information.” The data has been compiled by the US-based Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit journalism school. Postcard News is no surprise—its founder, Mahesh Hegde, has been arrested for spreading fake news and continues to do so. However, Indiatimes, a Times Internet product, is a surprise.
The survey was conducted by the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The resulting list of 513 websites believed to be associated with unreliable news was released in a report called “UnNews: An index of unreliable news websites”. The two Indian websites have been tagged “unreliable”.
The Mystery of Print
Everywhere else in the democratic, free market world, obits are being written about the demise of print publications, battered into submission and bankruptcy by the digital monster. Paradoxically, India continues to buck the trend. The latest Indian Readership Survey (IRS) Q1 2019 data by the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) showed dailies adding 1.8 crore additional readers since IRS 2017 and magazines increasing readership by 90 lakh—taking the total number of readers in the country up from 40.7 crore to 42.5 crore. In India, it seems print readership has been boosted by the rise in literacy levels and disposable incomes. Some print publications even registered double digit growth. They include The Times of India, Mumbai Mirror, Mid Day and Mint, the only decline being recorded by The Telegraph. There is one caveat though, the readership figures of national daily Hindustan Times has been kept on ice pending re-verification of the data.
The IRS for the first quarter of 2019 shows the dominance of regional media. Dainik Jagran was the most read newspaper, followed by Dainik Bhaskar, Amar Ujala, Daily Thanthi, Lokmat, Rajasthan Patrika and Malayala Manorama. Among English dailies, TOI retains the number one ranking and is ninth among all dailies.