During India’s months-long national election season, the country’s hundreds of cable news networks seemed to be trying to outdo each other: predicting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would win, and win big.
However, the actual election result on June 4th led to such a sharp decline in his fortune that he was only able to secure another term in office with the help of coalition partners.
This was a shocking result for many, and now India is wondering why so few foresaw the popularity of an opposition movement. Some media outlets had predicted that Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win as many as 400 of the 543 available seats in Parliament, but in the end it won only 240.
Many see the disparity as a sign of how thoroughly the prime minister had intimidated the mainstream media and how his control over the information system had become so complete that the hype obscured voters’ true feelings.
During Modi’s decade in office, a mix of pressure and incentives transformed mainstream news outlets into proponents of his every move. They presented the powerful prime minister as an unstoppable leader who was too overwhelming for any opponent to challenge. A debate about his policies or even about the fulfillment of his promises was out of the question.
Many reporters at established news outlets embraced what Mr. Modi had normalized: pride in his Hindu vision of India. Those who investigated the unsavory side of his tenure, including independent bodies that harshly criticized his policies, were ostracized, searched or otherwise forced into surrender.
When polls came out on election night, one channel even declared that Modi’s alliance would win 30 parliamentary seats in a state that had only 25. Another anchor appeared to ridicule his own station’s reporters for suggesting there was discontent over economic stress.
That the vast majority of broadcasters were way off the mark in their forecasts, analysts said, indicated one of two things: Indian citizens were too afraid to speak their minds or were too wary of the broadcast media to trust them with their true opinions .
“The media was actually campaigning for the ruling party,” said Yogendra Yadav, a political activist and veteran election analyst, adding: “They are a blot on our democracy.”
Analysts say Mr Modi and the mainstream media have underestimated how much information space has moved beyond the bubble they created. As the mainstream media has lost credibility, a parallel system of online news reporters with a more independent outlook has emerged.
In fact, most elections took place online. Opposition figures have considered online spaces important platforms to voice criticism of Mr. Modi, who they say has made India less democratic and more unequal.
“Centrist journalism is missing and that is a loss for this country,” said Saurabh Shukla, co-founder of The Red Mike, a YouTube channel.
Mr. Shukla, an award-winning reporter who quit his job at a news channel to start his YouTube channel with another journalist, said there was a marked contrast between what was shown on television news and what he and many other journalists there saw ground.
In a sign that even Mr. Modi was waking up to inequality, he sent his ministers to YouTube channels to discuss his party’s successes. At times he even trolled the mainstream media who praised him.
“If you are in the media and wave a Modi flag with abandon – who will keep you?” the prime minister told four interviewers at a New Delhi-based media organization.
With a population of 1.4 billion people, India has more than 350 news channels with 880 satellite television channels. It also has the most YouTube users in the world.
Since its independence in 1947, India had developed a reputation for having a rich and independent media culture, interrupted only by the months-long state of emergency and censorship imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the mid-1970s.
But that independent trend has changed over the years of Mr. Modi’s leadership, as leaders of his Hindu nationalist bloc have found a variety of ways to apply pressure to keep media groups in line.
Reporters and editors critical of the government gradually left traditional news channels and went online. Unlike television news channels that spent hours covering Mr. Modi during the election campaign, this group of independent reporters talked about people, their stories and their problems.
Among them is Ravish Kumar. After quitting his job as a prime-time news anchor, Mr. Kumar started broadcasting on YouTube. For months he has focused on issues such as rising rural unemployment and gaps in competitive exams that have led hundreds of thousands of students to join protest marches.
While Mr. Kumar, followed by more than a million people almost every day, questioned Mr. Modi on whether he wanted to use religious polarization to win votes instead of talking about his development record, his colleagues on television news used prime time to press the issue Mr. Modi attacking opponents.
Network anchors used their interview time with Mr. Modi mostly to ask softball questions that had nothing to do with national issues, such as “Is this election a formality?” or “Why don’t you get tired?”
Another independent journalist, Ajit Anjum, reported on voter anger against a federal minister after spending days in the minister’s constituency in Uttar Pradesh state. Many news outlets predicted she would win in a landslide, but she was crushed by her low-key rival, a longtime campaign manager for opposition leaders. It was another accurate prediction from an independent YouTube news channel.
“YouTube has made life difficult for the BJP and its media supporters,” said journalist Shukla. As election results emerged, more viewers seemed to turn to online news viewers for follow-up coverage.
Several independent media organizations came together for their own election night coverage, and many Indians followed them online for more sober analysis than they got from shouting matches on TV news.
It’s unclear whether the sudden rush on independent journalism will last.
“I don’t know if this will continue,” said Mandeep Punya, a freelance journalist. He added that while more people were watching his content, a new law had made it easier for the government to censor online stories.
Despite challenges from the government, online news providers have grown in trustworthiness this election cycle. Their accuracy in predicting the results was in stark contrast to the cable news networks’ predictions.
Mr. Yadav, the political activist, said after a tour of India’s Hindi-speaking north, where the traditional base of Mr. Modi’s party is located, he expected the BJP to win no more than 260 seats. Few believed his assessment, particularly among television news commentators. But he was right.
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2024-07-04 04:29:51
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