Press freedom index puts focus on newsrooms telling India’s hardest stories

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on May 7, 2026

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2026/05/07/press-freedom-index-puts-focus-on-newsrooms-telling-indias-hardest-stories

Every year we are informed that India is sinking lower on the World Press Freedom Index put together by Reporters Without Borders. India now stands at 157 out of 180 countries. “So what?” says the government. “We know,” say journalists who have felt the brunt of this decline.

It is worth considering though what “press freedom” means for those engaged in the media – print, broadcast and digital – and especially the journalists who work outside the formal economy of the media as independent journalists.

Press freedom is dependent on many things, including laws made by the government. But protection under law is not enough, even in a democracy as we have experienced in India during the Emergency when all pretence of press freedom was abandoned in the name of national security. Even today, especially in the last decade, the same trope of national security is used to imprison journalists or to bring in curbs that in effect curtail the right of journalists to information.  

In fact, this is precisely what the RSF report highlights, the impact of the November 2025 rules the government published for the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023). “This new legal framework”, the report states, “directly undermines the fundamentals of journalism by restricting access to, processing of, and publication of certain types of information that could be of interest to the public, starting with administrative documents, public archives, and all other information that could implicate public officials or institutions entrusted with a mission of general interest”.

Apart from such direct intervention by the government that undercuts the very concept of a free media, we also see how this is further emasculated when a powerful executive teams up with private money power.

In India, big money and the executive have been known to come together to suppress reporting on issues that would be uncomfortable to both for decades. This trend consolidated post 1991 and liberalisation when the media, then mostly print media, became commercialised and news was redefined as something that would sell the “product”. That is when we saw the amplification of some and the erasure of others from the news pages. The rich, the politically powerful, celebrities were “news”; the poor, the working classes, the people living on the peripheries were not worth featuring.

That trend has now become an almost accepted feature where, as I argued in an earlier column, the dominant narrative suggested by the government is echoed uncritically by the media (barring a few exceptions). The economically powerful owners go along with this either because their politics matches that of the ruling party or because they are aware of the cost of not doing so given the extent to which the Modi government has weaponised the use of agencies to deal with any opposition.

In sum, India’s declining status on the World Press Freedom Index is no surprise.

Yet, we must consider who pays the price for this decline in media freedom. 

The brunt of the decline noted by the RSF is felt by those journalists working outside the frame of mainstream media. In fact, if there is journalism being done the way it should in a democracy, where your camera or your pen seeks out the voiceless, where you report irrespective of whose toes you tread on – big business or big government – because you believe it is a story that must be told, it is the growing tribe of independent journalists in India who are doing this.

They are not backed by any union or association that will come to their aid if they are arrested, bullied, attacked physically or virtually. In fact, even the big publications that they write for often back off when these journalists get embroiled in a court case initiated by a functionary of the ruling party. 

Despite this, it is encouraging that scores of independent journalists are not giving up. They continue to report and expose both business and government, and often both. To give just one example, the story of the environmentally devastating projects being planned in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have been reported mainly by independent journalists for years (read here and here). They finally got noticed by the mainstream, albeit momentarily, when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi happened to visit the islands recently.

The other barometer of press freedom is what the media chooses to downplay or even ignore and why.

Coincidentally, World Press Freedom Day is two days after May 1, universally celebrated as International Workers’ Day, marking the struggle of workers for an 8-hour workday. I doubt if many people, especially the younger generation, are even aware of this struggle and its significance.  

But the coincidence also reminds us of the absence of reporting on trade unions, those that have survived despite liberalisation and the dominant contract system that most workers are compelled to accept. These workers are not invisible. They are everywhere, building our infrastructure, constructing private buildings, running the gig economy, working in farms. And then there are those who are virtually invisible, the men and women who work in the homes of the better off Indians at shockingly low pay.

These Indians make it past the barrier of what is considered newsworthy only when they organise, protest, clash with the police, get beaten up and are jailed as the recent protests in Noida highlighted. Though these protests were covered by print, much of the reporting was done by small independent platforms on social media.  Such as this where a worker tells a reporter, “We put our children to sleep hungry. We hold them to our chests and sing lullabies, so that they don’t remember their hunger.” 

We heard women and men speak about the shocking conditions at their places of work; not just how little they were paid (less than the minimum wage) but the mockery of the annual “increment” that they received. They spoke of how their pay was cut if they fell sick or had to travel for an emergency. And that after years of working in a factory, or as construction labour, there was no compensation if the factory closed or the contract work ended (read here). 

We also heard from domestic workers who are unorganised and who are in no position to demand higher wages as there are always people available to work for less. Such is the level of desperation. But to hear the stories of the women who speak of employers who haven’t given them a raise, who cut their wages if they absent themselves from work because of ill health or family emergencies, reminds us that this is India 2026, where those who labour still struggle for a living wage. 

Finding meaningful reporting on the working class is like searching for a needle in a haystack these days. Yet, there was a time, when major newspapers like The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express had a labour reporter, someone whose job it was to report on the conditions of the working classes. That position disappeared around the time that news was redefined as anything that will attract eyeballs.

As a result, our so-called “free” media in India is dedicated only to reporting on those with economic and political heft while the bulk of this country remains outside the definition of “news”.  

It is significant that the RSF report zeroes in on the changes made by the Modi government to digital laws that will restrict reporting by the independent journalists who are telling stories that mainstream will not report. Perhaps we should see this as a sign of hope, that despite what appears to be their limited reach, the combined presence of so many feisty independent journalists has made a powerful government uncomfortable. 

TV media sinks lower as independent media offers glimmer of hope in 2025

 Broken News

2025 in Review

Published in Newslaundry on December 22, 2025

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2025/12/22/tv-media-sinks-lower-as-independent-media-offers-glimmer-of-hope-in-2025

As we come to the end of 2025, how do we assess the state of our mainstream media? Can it sink lower than it already has, given that it stands at 151 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index? 

It can because in more than two instances this year, mainstream media, especially TV news, has demonstrated the depths to which it can fall.

Yet there is a glimmer of hope: despite the dismal performance of mainstream TV channels, independent journalists and digital platforms still survive and do the kind of journalism this country needs.

The two lowest points for our mainstream media this year, in my view, were the coverage of Operation Sindoor and the reporting and follow-up stories after the Delhi blast, when a car exploded at peak hour near the Red Fort, killing an estimated 15 people.

Indian TV channels love war and conflict. It allows them to dramatise, increase decibel levels, and stage the conflict in their studios by pitching individuals who can outshout their opponents. But the coverage of Operation Sindoor exceeded expectations. 

Indian channels, even so-called “respectable” news channels like India Today, fell for the fake news that India had captured Lahore and bombed Karachi. In the rush to be the first, these channels fell hook, line and sinker for the most obvious fake news. 

Even a slight pause, a pinch of scepticism, and taking time to implement a basic journalistic norm – verify and double check – would have saved them from this stupid and appalling faux pas. But no, who has the time these days to do this? Scepticism is reserved for statements made by those who oppose the government, while obedience to the narrative of those who support it is the norm.

Just watch this episode of TV Newsance by Manisha Pande to remind yourself of the disgraceful coverage by our leading TV news channels. It is cringeworthy.

In fact, Rajdeep Sardesai, one of the many anchors who allowed these fairy tales to be broadcast as if they were verified news, acknowledges that it was a mistake and says he apologised on air. A long profile piece on him in Caravan mentions that in a post-mortem bureau meeting, when asked why they didn’t verify the news, India Today staffers said that several reporters had been called by ministers and senior officials from various ministries telling them that this was precisely what was going to happen and that TV channels should “break” this news.

The media’s behaviour during Operation Sindoor reconfirms what’s now well known: that the government briefs journalists through messages and phone calls about what should be reported.

The other low point in my view is the way the media reported the Delhi blast and its aftermath. All kinds of unverified information were instantly broadcast and reported. Basically, anything the government or investigative agencies told the media was presented as the truth, with no effort at fact-checking (read here).

A consequence of such reporting was felt immediately by ordinary Kashmiris in other parts of the country and in Kashmir. The demolition of the house of the main suspect was reported but not questioned; the fact that all doctors from Kashmir were being viewed as potential suspects was also not questioned. 

And if this was not enough, the locked office of the Kashmir Times in Jammu was raided by the State Investigation Agency, which claimed it had found guns and ammunition in it. The editors and owners of the paper, which is now published remotely as a digital publication, have been charged under various sections, including for violating India’s “sovereignty”. Kashmir Times is practically the only independent voice coming out of Kashmir, as most others have either fallen in line or been banned. 

The state of the media in Kashmir, and the problems that journalists there face almost every day, continues to be the litmus test for the extent of freedom that the Indian media enjoys. Just this week, the police arrived at the home of Jehangir Ali, the reporter for The Wire, and without a warrant, seized his phone without providing him with the hash value to ensure that it would not be tampered with. He finally got the phone back after several hours.

A glimmer of hope

Despite the Modi government's proactive efforts to ensure that mainstream media sticks to the approved narrative, and the threats and intimidation, especially against journalists in Kashmir, aimed at sending a clear message to other journalists who choose to do their jobs, several remarkable investigative stories have appeared on independent platforms.

At a time when the word “environment” is clubbed with the killer air pollution levels in Delhi and in many other cities in India, it is important to remember that there are other pressing environmental challenges that get precious little coverage in the media, such as the handing over of forests to private interests. 

A story to note is independent journalist M. Rajshekhar's piece on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Writing in Time magazine, Rajshekhar reports on the disaster that the natural resources of the islands and the indigenous communities face due to the government’s policies.

Another story that stands out for the challenge the reporter must have faced while investigating it is Nidhi Suresh's report in The News Minute. The journalist did a remarkable job by talking to the nun who alleged she was raped by Bishop Franco Mulakkal in 2018. Although the Bishop was acquitted, no one knows what happened to the nun. Nidhi Suresh traced her and persuaded her to speak. The result is a chilling narrative in 10 parts of the life of this woman.

Another recent investigative story is Sukanya Shantha's three-part series in The Wire.  Based on publicly available data, Shantha has followed up on the National Investigation Agency’s claims that it secured convictions in 100 percent of its cases in 2024. Her digging revealed that this was happening because the people accused, the majority of them Muslim men charged under laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), were persuaded to plead guilty when faced with the reality that they would spend much longer in jail as undertrials waiting for the trial to begin.  

While Alt News remains outstanding in its fact-checking work, as seen best during Operation Sindoor, Newslaundry has also done notable stories, like this one on the stampede during the Kumbh Mela this year. The government insisted that only 30 people had died. NL reporters, however, found that as many as 79 had died in the stampede. This was established by doing the kind of routine work that journalists are expected to do: first being sceptical of government data, then following up and checking for yourself. When that is done, as we saw during the Covid pandemic, there’s always a yawning gap between official figures and reality.

While “vote chori” and elections continue to be widely covered, the back story of how political parties like the BJP are funded, particularly before the Supreme Court scrapped the Electoral bonds scheme, did not get the same kind of attention. 

Although Indian Express has now done a detailed story on who funds political parties, earlier it was independent platforms that investigated the Electoral Bonds scheme. More recently, the Reporters’ Collective has investigated the BJP's funding in Assam. The results are revealing. Most of the funders are people who have won lucrative government contracts.

And finally, like Kashmir, some of the best reporting on Northeast India, which only comes into focus during conflict, is from reporters working for independent digital news platforms. Like this report by Rokibuz Zaman of Scroll of the people physically pushed out of Assam into Bangladesh because they were suspected to be “foreigners” even though they were Indian citizens.

In sum, at the end of 2025, we are where we were at the end of 2024. The mainstream media houses, and specifically their television channels, continue to compete to go lower with news that is sometimes untrue and almost always divisive in a country where the nature of our politics increasingly fractures the polity.

And for real journalism, for in-depth stories, practically the only source – although some print media like Indian Express, The Hindu and Times of India have done some excellent long-form stories – are the independent digital news platforms that continue to survive, even if precariously.

Modi govt’s message for 2024, with blocking orders and an OCI cancellation

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on February 22, 2024

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/02/22/modi-govts-message-for-2024-with-blocking-orders-and-an-oci-cancellation

The Narendra Modi government hates the concept of ranking countries on a press freedom index, an exercise that Reporters Without Borders undertakes each year. The last such ranking, in 2023, placed India at 161 out of 180 countries, below others in our region, including Pakistan (150), Nepal (95), Sri Lanka (135) and Bhutan (90). Only Bangladesh has the distinction of being two notches lower at 163.

So, in 2024, will India’s ranking in this index sink further?

Going by the government’s actions since the beginning of this year, there is more than a good chance that it will.

On February 9, Caravan magazine received a notice from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry about an article it had published on February 1 titled, “Screams from the Army post”.  It was given two days to respond. The magazine did respond but the ministry was not satisfied. On February 11, a meeting on Zoom between representatives of the ministry and Caravan was held. Later, on the same day, the magazine received a notice that it must take down this article within 24 hours.

What was the offending article, that has now been taken down, about? It was a detailed story written by Jatinder Kaur Tur on allegations of torture by the Indian armed forces against civilians from Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir in December 2023. Three of the 25 men picked up for questioning died in army custody.

The government used Section 69A of the IT Act, a section that has been challenged in several high courts, to justify its action. The section permits the government to take down any content that it concludes threatens the “sovereignty, integrity, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to the above”.

The government’s concerns about certain types of information coming out extends not just to platforms and publications located within India, but even those outside. Thus, in January, the Hate Tracker, a platform that documents incidents of hate speech and hate crimes in India, but is located outside the country, was blocked in India. This report in Article 14 sets out the details. The reason? The same as that used for the Caravan article under Section 69A.

The government has also demonstrated its inability to accept the right of foreign journalists based in India to report freely what they see and hear. On February 16,Vanessa Dougnac, a French journalist who has lived and worked in India for 25 years, was told she would have to leave the country. Her Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status was withdrawn. She was told that her work was “inimical to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India and to the interests of the general public”.

In a statement before she left, Dougnac said: “Today, I am unable to work and have been unfairly accused of prejudicing the interests of the state. It has become clear that I cannot keep living in India and earning my livelihood. I am fighting these accusations before the competent forums, and I have full faith in the legal process. But I can’t afford to wait for its outcome. The proceedings with respect to my OCI status have shattered me, especially now that I see them as part of a wider effort by the Government of India to curb dissent from the OCI community.” 

As one can imagine, a foreign correspondent being asked to leave on dodgy grounds has not gone unnoticed around the world. In a strong and explicit statement, RSF stated:

“Forcing a seasoned professional journalist to leave India after she had been based there for two decades reveals a very dark and deplorable image of what press freedom has become under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With two months to go to general elections, the vice is tightening on foreign correspondents who try to cover India in a professional manner. We condemn the unacceptable way Vanessa Dougnac has been treated and the use of absurd accusations as a subterfuge to gag and intimidate outspoken reporters. The Indian authorities must guarantee journalists’ safety and freedom to work.”

The latest action of the government is an order sent to X on February 19 asking it to take down several accounts. Coincidentally, most of these are independent journalists using social media to report on the ongoing farmers’ agitation. These accounts provide us with detailed news about the agitation, about the way the farmers have had to face tear gas dropped by drones and rubber bullets fired by the security forces standing behind concrete barricades to prevent them from marching to Delhi. On February 21, the first death of one of these farmers – 24-year-old Shubhkaran Singh – from a bullet injury was reported.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, one of the accounts taken down is that of independent journalist Mandeep Punia and his platform Gaon Savera. People might have forgotten that Punia was central to the reporting of the previous farmers agitation in 2021. In this article he wrote for Outlook magazine in 2021, he describes his arrest by the police, and the stories he heard and reported during those months.

Although X has complied with the government’s orders, as it has done in the past, this time it has issued the following statement: “In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these posts and accounts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.”

You might think one article, one foreign journalist being expelled, and a few social media accounts being taken down does not represent any real threat to freedom of the press in India. But it does.

 

What these three incidents in the first two months of 2024 illustrate is the intent of this government. Clearly, it is determined to do whatever it takes to suppress critical independent reporting.

It does not care what international groups like RSF think. It does not care where India is ranked in a press freedom index. It is only interested in ensuring that the narrative that it has endorsed about what is happening anywhere in this country, which is dutifully amplified by mainstream TV, is the one that all media should echo. Those who refuse, do so at their own risk.

 

What media coverage of wrestler protests, Malik’s remarks and Mann Ki Baat tells us about press freedom

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on May 4, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/05/04/what-media-coverage-of-wrestler-protests-maliks-remarks-and-mann-ki-baat-tells-us-about-press-freedom

The ongoing protest by Indian wrestling champions Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia demanding action against the head of the Wrestling Federation of India, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, on charges of sexual harassment, has held up a mirror not just to Indian society but also to the media.

National English language newspapers have given the protests prominent coverage, not just on the sports page, but also on the front page. On April 26, for instance, after the wrestlers decided to resume their protest at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, most papers carried stories on both pages simultaneously and strong editorial comments (read here, here, here and here). 

It is likely that a combination of this kind of persistent coverage, allowing the voices of the women and men involved to be heard, as well as the intervention of the Supreme Court in admitting the protesters’ petition demanding that the Delhi police file an FIR against Singh, finally shamed the latter into doing so. 

But the coverage also threw up other questions that need to be answered. The most glaring one was whether other women in sports have also experienced what these women wrestlers have brought out in the open. Can other sportswomen also speak up? If not, why?

Finally, one newspaper has begun the process that needs to be pursued in greater depth by the media. An investigation by the Indian Express, published on May 4, reveals that 16 out of 30 sports federations have not set up the very minimum that is needed to deal with sexual harassment, that is an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) as mandated by the 2013 Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act. If some have, then the process is incomplete even though the law lays down very clearly the composition of these committees.

We must remember that in most sports, especially in athletics, the women who do well often come from smaller towns, even villages. Their families cannot send them to the kind of private schools that would give them an opportunity to explore a career in sports. Often such families choose to invest what little they have to give their talented daughters a chance. For every girl who succeeds, there must be thousands who never get a chance. That is why the story of women in sports in India is one that needs greater focus in the media.

Many of these young women and girls, who overcome dominant conservative and patriarchal norms, and make their way to training camps to prepare for their lives in sports, do not possess the social capital to question or confront the powerful men in control. They also cannot risk losing the chance to get ahead in their sporting careers. Hence the silence that has now been broken by the women wrestlers.

This is a story that must be investigated at many levels. The absence of the ICCs is the first step.  The sub-par conditions in the training facilities have sometimes been highlighted but they need more exposure. And we need to know more about these young women and girls who are dreaming of making it big in sports. Only then can readers and viewers understand the significance of this protest by the women wrestlers.

The fact that at least some media have followed up on this protest also reminds us of recent stories that continue to be ignored. For instance, the revelations of the former governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Satyapal Malik, in various interviews he gave last month about the Pulwama tragedy of February 2019. Many questions remain unanswered and despite Malik’s controversial statements, the government has chosen to remain silent. Some of the media did report what he said, but there has been little to nothing in mainstream media by way of a follow-up so far. The silence is telling.

In contrast, it was interesting to see the almost uniform, and uncritical coverage of the hundredth episode of the Prime Minister’s monthly monologue, Mann Ki Baat. Every newspaper front-paged it. All the praises by various people, including film stars, were reported. The narrative set out for this occasion, that this was a way Modi connected to the people in India, was repeated uncritically throughout.

Curiously, the media did not ask why a programme by a prime minister – on government media and further amplified by a virtual diktat to private channels to also relay it – needed to be celebrated when it crossed a particular number? Was there any doubt that it would not cross this milestone? Furthermore, were millions of people really stopping in their tracks to listen when the prime minister’s voice came through the airwaves? 

Only some independent digital platforms like The Wire had the temerity to tell us something else, that in fact a majority of those surveyed had never listened to even one of the 100 episodes of Mann Ki Baat. A little scepticism is the norm in any country that boasts of having a free press.  

So how free is the media in India? Not much, according to the World Press Freedom Index 2023 released on May 3, World Press Freedom Day.

India has slipped 11 points on the World Press Freedom Index, from 150 out of 180 countries last year to 161 this time. 

This news was not greeted with concern, or disbelief. While digital news platforms and social media did take note and comment, most newspapers carried routine reports. So far, there has been nothing either expressing concern or scepticism about India’s ranking on this index. The government, predictably, has chosen to ignore it completely. If it does comment, it will probably dismiss it as a Western conspiracy to attack India’s “vibrant democracy”. 

Yet, this precipitous fall in the press freedom ranking in just one year calls for further investigation. 

According to the report by Reporters Without Borders that puts together this index each year, India is one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist, given that on an average, three to four journalists are killed every year. Additionally, the report notes, “Journalists are exposed to all kinds of physical violence including police violence, ambushes by political activists, and deadly reprisals by criminal groups or corrupt local officials. Supporters of Hindutva, the ideology that spawned the Hindu far right, wage all-out online attacks on any views that conflict with their thinking.”

The report points out that although there are laws in place that should protect journalists, provisions of defamation, sedition, contempt of court and endangering national security are in fact being used against journalists who are critical. Proof of this is evident if one looks at what’s happening in Kashmir, where a combination of threats, intimidation and arrests have silenced what was once a vibrant media scene.  

The report concludes, “The old Indian model of a pluralist press is therefore being seriously challenged by a combination of harassment and influence.”

The real story about the deterioration in press freedom lies away from the big cities where mainstream media is concentrated. We need to focus on the stringer, the rural journalists, the district level papers and local channels and assess how they survive financially, what are the challenges they face from local authorities, and if they have survived, how have they changed. This would give us a better understanding of why the World Press Freedom Index has ranked India so low.  

In any case, press freedom as a concept has been slowly and steadily hollowed out, especially in the last nine years since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Delhi. As a result, readers and viewers of the media are gradually accepting that what we see today is the norm, that the job of the media is to support the powerful in politics and business, not to question and expose them. 

In India, press freedom is unlikely to ever be a burning election issue. It will not reflect in commitments in election manifestos, whatever such promises are worth. Nor will it get people out on the streets defending it.

One reason for this is the gradual loss of trust in the media, particularly by those who are already marginalised in our society.  

The Reuters Institute conducted an interesting study recently on trust in the media in four countries – United States, United Kingdom, India, and Brazil. 

Through discussions in focus groups in these countries, comprising representatives from marginalised communities, the study found that many such groups felt that the media either misrepresented them, or under-represented their concerns, or put out inaccurate news about them. This has resulted in not just lack of trust but in some instances even harmed such communities. 

I will leave readers with this observation in the report which I think is prescient and reflects accurately the real condition of the media in India. 

“The news media as an institution, especially in the UK, the US, and India, was often viewed as an extension of systems aligned to serve those in power – systems many felt excluded from… News media were rarely seen as catering to the entire public so much as reinforcing the interests of those already most privileged and powerful.”