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India
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How pro-Modi billionaires are reshaping India’s media landscape, 1 outlet at a time: ‘journalism is dead’

  • On the face of it, India still has a vibrant media, with more than 20,000 newspapers and 300 television channels in a nation of 1.4 billion people
  • But to many journalists, buy-outs, leadership changes and diluted coverage illustrate how PM Modi has effectively brought the industry to heel

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An NDTV microphone is seen on a tripod at a roadside in New Delhi. Ahead of national elections, the channel akin to India’s CNN has morphed into a government mouthpiece, according to current and former employees. Photo: Reuters
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An exodus of star anchors. Fawning coverage of India’s political leaders. Newsroom censoring of reporters who ask the government tough questions on the economy, public policy and conflict.
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These are some of the changes journalists attribute to a management shake-up at New Delhi Television Ltd., which billionaire Gautam Adani acquired more than a year ago through a hostile takeover. Ahead of India’s national elections, NDTV has morphed into a government mouthpiece, according to current and former employees. They say the channel – akin to India’s CNN – has shed its reputation as one of the country’s most fearlessly independent news outlets.

“Journalism is dead,” said Ravish Kumar, a popular anchor who resigned from NDTV ahead of Adani’s takeover. These days, he said in an interview, “the only use of newspapers and channels is to create propaganda for Narendra Modi.”
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi emerges from the sea after praying at an underwater site in Dwarka, Gujarat, claimed to be a lost mythical city associated with Hindu god Lord Krishna earlier this month. Photo: Narendra Modi on X via AP
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi emerges from the sea after praying at an underwater site in Dwarka, Gujarat, claimed to be a lost mythical city associated with Hindu god Lord Krishna earlier this month. Photo: Narendra Modi on X via AP

On the face of it, India still has a vibrant media. With more than 20,000 newspapers and 300 television channels, the industry reflects the vast diversity of a democracy with 1.4 billion people.

But to many journalists, leadership changes at NDTV and diluted coverage across India illustrate how Prime Minister Modi has effectively brought to heel a once-riotous media. Newsrooms are being reshaped, they say, by India’s richest press barons, many of whom are close to the ruling party and depend on millions of advertising dollars from the government.

Adani, one of Asia’s richest tycoons and a long-time friend of Modi, is a high-profile case study. After his conglomerate acquired NDTV, the channel commissioned an adulatory nine-part documentary about Modi and now lands exclusive interviews with senior officials in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Just a few years ago, sit-downs with top cabinet members were rare and managers fretted about federal agencies raiding NDTV’s offices.

Pressure to avoid sensitive topics extends beyond Modi, according to nearly a dozen current and former employees, who asked not to be identified to protect their jobs in the industry. After a US short seller accused the Adani Group of “brazen fraud” in January of last year, the conglomerate shed US$150 billion in market value at one point. NDTV’s new leaders ordered journalists not to cover the story, according to three employees, even as Adani-related shares plunged on the stock market and local and foreign media outlets published reports. Over the next 48 hours, reporters pushed back, eventually convincing senior editors to publish an article from a newswire.
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