Watch Nidhi Razdan Indian media’s moment of reckoning is here

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Transcript

00:00Now that the general elections are over, this is a time for reflection in the Indian legacy

00:07media. We know now that for the last decade or so, legacy newsrooms have essentially become

00:14an extension of the government's propaganda wing. It's shameful how the so-called mainstream

00:20media has completely abdicated its duty, its role, and ended up essentially regurgitating

00:26whatever the government has wanted it to do. And that's why the results came as a shock

00:30to many of these so-called godi media anchors on the 4th of June who had been predicting

00:35a landslide victory for the BJP and berating those who did not agree with their point of

00:40view. Suddenly, many of them sounded a lot more softer, a lot more chastened. But the

00:46question that everyone wanted to ask was whether this would actually lead to a change in the

00:51way they report the news. That's really not the case. If you watch these news channels

00:55in particular closely even now, they are still very much godi media, and they're not

01:00going to change in a hurry. And I argue in this piece that those who do try to take a

01:05u-turn now have completely lost their credibility in any case, and I wouldn't really depend

01:10on them to bring you fair and objective news. As I wrote earlier, the real stars of this

01:15election have been the YouTubers, the digital media platforms that have stuck their necks

01:20out with solid ground reporting and commentary to bring you the reality of what is happening

01:27on the ground in India. And these are the news outlets that are actually doing real

01:33journalism. And that's why the government now wants to control or regulate what digital

01:38content creators are doing online as well. That's part of a new bill that is currently

01:43in the draft stage that the government is looking to bring more control over. That's

01:49a separate debate and one that I think will see an intensified controversy in the days

01:54and weeks ahead. But for the Indian media, this is a moment of reckoning. We can either

02:00choose to sink or we can choose to redeem ourselves.