The question that vanished from the Noida newsroom — What explains the sudden spike in custodial deaths?–disappeared with the same efficiency with which inconvenient truths now evaporate from India’s television screens. A senior producer hovered over the line, her hesitation shaped not by editorial judgement but by an instinct that has become second nature in a climate where asking the wrong thing can end careers. The cursor blinked, almost expectant, before the line was excised in a gesture so swift that anyone walking past her terminal would have missed its significance. But such micro-erasures accumulate, forming the unseen architecture of a media ecosystem where silence becomes the safest form of speech. Outside, Noida’s towers buzzed with their usual glow; inside, the newsroom exhaled a practiced indifference. On hundreds of screens across the country, similar deletions played out like quiet rituals, defining what the nation may see, hear, fear, remember, or forget. And yet, India marks National Press Day every November 16, a day conceived in 1966 to honour the Press Council’s birth as a guardian of independence and ethics, even as the country now stands in the grip of a press culture that often celebrates acquiescence more than inquiry. What meaning does a day dedicated to freedom hold in an atmosphere where freedom itself feels conditional– doled out in calibrated doses, revered in speeches, avoided in studios?

India’s journalistic inheritance should have been its greatest democratic asset. Long before the formal birth of the nation, Hickey’s Bengal Gazette confronted power with irreverence and defiance, setting in motion a tradition in which the press acted not merely as chronicler but as participant in the political imagination. Newspapers nurtured the anti-colonial struggle, shaped public thought, exposed injustice, and provided an early scaffolding to the republic. For the generations after Independence, the morning newspaper became both mirror and compass, challenging leaders, questioning institutions, and insisting on accountability. But the legacy built on courage has slipped into an age of noise. Modern television newsrooms, once arenas of debate and dissent, now often resemble theatres of spectacle, where anger is choreographed, panels are weaponised, and data is eclipsed by drama. The shift did not arrive like a storm; it crept in slowly, the way rust eats into an unguarded gate—not dramatic, not sudden, but steadily corrosive.

At the centre of this corrosion lies the rise of what has come to be called godi media, a phrase that has entered everyday political vocabulary with chilling ease. A large section of broadcast media has fashioned itself into an echo chamber that mirrors power, flatters authority, and cultivates narratives designed to align public sentiment with the interests of the ruling establishment. The traits are unmistakable: effusive praise of government actions dressed as analysis, relentless targeting of dissenters, theatrical patriotism masquerading as journalism, and emotionally charged programming built on fear and outrage rather than fact. These channels do not simply frame events; they cultivate climates. Their anchors become performers of loyalty; their shows function as nightly rehearsals of the same anxieties repeated with slight alterations, much like propaganda exercises that seek to condition viewers rather than inform them.

National Press Day sits uneasily in this environment. What was meant to be a celebration of a fearless Fourth Estate now unfolds against the backdrop of FIRs filed against reporters for routine stories, raids on media offices, surveillance of journalists, censorship through pressure, and the transformation of prime-time anchors into campaign mascots. Instead of defending citizens against the excesses of power, many studios have aligned with it, producing programming that resembles political rallies more than public forums. The spectacle numbs viewers to the severity of this shift: communal issues sensationalised with abandon, uncomfortable stories killed before they surface, and violence against journalists normalised to a point where condemnation sounds repetitive.

India’s position—151 out of 180—on the 2025 World Press Freedom Index should have triggered a national reckoning. Instead, most major channels pretended the ranking did not exist. No primetime debates, no investigative specials, no editorial grief; only an orchestrated collective silence. Why would the outlets contributing to the crisis amplify it? Self-reflection threatens the very model that sustains them. For viewers, the tragedy is sharper: Indians consume more media than ever before—on channels, apps, platforms, and social networks—yet receive less verified information and more emotionally engineered content. The volume has increased; the credibility has hollowed.

India’s media boom masks a profound crisis. With more than 500 television channels, over 70,000 print publications, the world’s highest newspaper circulation, and thousands of digital newsrooms, the sheer abundance creates the illusion of diversity. But ownership is concentrated in a handful of corporate conglomerates whose business interests depend heavily on government clearances, licenses, land deals, infrastructure contracts, and advertising. When an industry’s financial health hinges on political goodwill, editorial independence becomes negotiable. What emerges is a pattern of selective journalism marked by manufactured outrage, strategic silence, performative patriotism, and carefully curated narratives that serve not the public but the powerful.

The manufacture of right-wing bias in this environment is meticulous. Newsrooms become factories of narrative engineering where unemployment figures disappear beneath celebrity gossip, inflation is overshadowed by communal debates, and discussions on farmers’ distress give way to pseudo-nationalist spectacles. Nightly panels are engineered to amplify fear—whether through phantom enemies like “urban Naxals” or through unverified alarms about “illegal immigrants.” A rotating cast of villains is always ready: students raising slogans, activists demanding rights, NGOs questioning policy, journalists asking questions, minorities existing outside majoritarian comfort. Communal scapegoating becomes a ratings strategy, transforming Muslims into lightning rods for every crisis, every rumour, every controversy. When governance falters, a celebrity’s arrest or a border stunt conveniently arrives to distract. Anchors, armed with graphics and fury, turn into prosecutors who shout over panellists, framing predetermined suspects while the audience is nudged toward certainties that have little to do with truth.

In this ecosystem, those who resist the theatrics face consequences that are neither sporadic nor accidental. Independent reporters confront raids on their homes, criminal cases for tweets, defamation suits designed to drain resources, and online harassment organised with military precision. Editors are pressured to fire inconvenient writers; freelancers are blacklisted; women journalists face gendered intimidation and stalking. The hostility is systemic—a structure that punishes dissent to enforce obedience. Each act of suppression broadcasts a message to the rest of the fraternity: the price of courage has risen.

Meanwhile, the corporate capture of media ensures that truth competes with profit and often loses. Major networks are financially intertwined with sectors like mining, real estate, energy, infrastructure, and international capital—all industries that require steady political favour. Government advertising remains a lifeline for many outlets, turning public money into a tool of control. The result is an economic compact: supportive coverage in exchange for financial security. The term godi media may sound political, but its roots are economic; loyalty is not merely ideological, it is transactional.

Digital media once offered hope of escape, but that hope is shrinking. Independent portals battle blocking orders, legal intimidation, algorithmic throttling, relentless trolling, and demonetisation threats. Outlets like Scroll, Caravan, Article 14, The Wire, and several regional platforms continue groundbreaking reporting, but they survive like insurgents—underequipped, overloaded, and under constant fire. A democracy where well-funded studios produce propaganda while truth is left to small, vulnerable teams is a democracy living on borrowed time.

Viewers, too, bear responsibility. The appetite for spectacle fuels the very system that impoverishes public discourse. Sensationalism is rewarded; complexity is punished. People choose quick outrage over slow understanding, echo chambers over critical thought, and identity comfort over investigative scrutiny. Democracies weaken as much from citizen fatigue as from institutional capture. When the audience stops demanding accountability, journalism stops supplying it.

The Press Council of India, meant to be the institution defending ethics, has become largely symbolic. With recommendatory powers but no mechanisms for enforcement, it cannot penalise offenders, overturn censorship, or shield journalists from state overreach. On National Press Day, it issues statements while the ground reality remains unchanged. India does not need a ceremonial lantern; it needs a watchdog with authority strong enough to confront both state and corporate excess.

The decay of prime time reveals the deepest moral collapse. Show openings now resemble action trailers—graphic explosions, heroic soundtracks, anchors poised like warriors. Panels are stacked to manufacture confrontation rather than understanding. The debates flatten every issue into binaries: patriotic vs. traitorous, majority vs. minority, national vs. anti-national. The performance is calibrated so that anger feels like knowledge and aggression passes for investigation. Fringe voices are legitimised as experts; dissenting journalists are maligned as enemies; data that complicates a narrative is simply omitted. The show does not seek insight; it seeks an audience reaction measured in TRPs and viral clips.

Behind the din lie the stories that never make it to primetime — the ghost stories of a republic in distress. Farmers sinking under debt, hospital wards where children die for lack of oxygen, workers displaced by floods and heatwaves, women denied justice, minorities living in fear, students priced out of education, forests sacrificed for extractive projects, institutions eaten hollow from within. These stories demand accountability, but accountability threatens revenue and relationships. So the stories vanish.

Yet resistance survives — in district newsrooms where a single reporter covers four beats with a borrowed camera; in student media collectives documenting abuses ignored by television giants; in tribal community radio stations chronicling dispossession; in digital outlets fact-checking lies at midnight; in regional newspapers that continue to publish what the national press finds inconvenient. These scattered, courageous voices form the last living nerve of the Indian journalistic tradition. Their work is not glamorous, not well funded, not celebrated—but it is honest, and honesty is an endangered commodity.

National Press Day, if it is to have meaning, must evolve from a ceremonial observance into a national reckoning. India needs structural reform: legal protections that shield journalists from state retaliation; transparent rules on media ownership; independent public funding mechanisms to support serious reporting; strong penalties for hate-based programming; widespread media literacy programs; a Press Council empowered with enforcement powers; and a broadcast regulator insulated from political capture. Without such measures, the day becomes performative — like commemorating a library while its shelves lie in ashes.

And yet, the future is not sealed. Somewhere tonight, while that question about custodial deaths remains deleted in Noida, a young reporter in a rural town files a story about land grab, knowing it may anger a local politician. A fact-checker dismantles a viral falsehood before it metastasises. A whistleblower leaves an envelope that reveals misconduct. A regional correspondent records a testimony others ignored. These modest acts—uncelebrated, undocumented, but defiantly human—keep democracy breathing. National Press Day belongs to them, not to the studios that trade scrutiny for access.

Authoritarianism does not triumph only when governments overreach. It triumphs when journalists choose comfort over conviction, theatre over truth, obedience over courage. India stands at a precarious threshold, where the Fourth Estate’s failure threatens the republic’s foundations. The question now is not whether godi media will continue bending. It is whether the remaining fragments of the Fourth Estate will stand upright long enough to protect the public from the encroaching dark.

A free press is not a courtesy extended by power. It is the final barricade against its excess. When the Fourth Estate forgets its spine, the nation risks forgetting its soul.

(Nazarullah Khan, Assistant Professor in Journalism and Mass Communication at Safi Institute of Advanced Study (Autonomous), Vazhayoor, Kerala, is a passionate educator shaping future communicators through his expertise and mentorship. Beyond academia, he is an actor, writer, poet and film mentor, blending creativity with teaching to offer a unique perspective on media and storytelling.)