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The Compass: Media Front: Media Front: India - The future of journalism

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Indian men reading newspapers

28/08/2019 GMT

Media Front: India - The future of journalism

Media Front

BBC World Service - The Compass, Media Front, Media Front: India - The future of journalism

What are the challenges for a free and independent media in India?

India's ruling party the BJP won a landslide victory in the country's May general election. The party bypassed traditional media channels and exploited India's love of social media to deliver their message direct to voters. 
 
Andrea Catherwood is a former international correspondent for CNBC and ITN. In the age of the unmediated political leader she asks - what's the future for journalism in India?
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has his own radio show, his own app and is among the most popular global leaders on Twitter. Meanwhile, many traditional media outlets, already struggling in a mobile first country, are dependent on the Government which is their largest advertiser. Some observers fear that the result is a subservient and unchallenging media.  
 
We hear about the real dangers for journalists who speak out against the Indian government and its supporters, consider how journalists and the media landscape will fare during the next five years of Modi's premiership and discuss the current media climate with a BJP supporting Indian politician and journalist. 
 
Andrea Catherwood is joined by Emily Bell, a professor at Columbia Journalism School, for whom these issues have global resonance.

(Photo: Indian men read newspaper outside a polling station in Agra Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Nasir Kachroo/Getty Images)

The Compass: Media Front

Andrea Catherwood examines the big global issues facing journalism and the media in 2019.

Former International Correspondent for CNBC and ITN Andrea Catherwood presents a major series of four programmes examining the big global issues facing journalism and the media in 2019.

Journalism around the world is under pressure like never before. Hostility to the mainstream media is increasing, with established outlets losing credibility and legitimacy across the globe. Meanwhile, digital disruptors and purveyors of fake news are deliberately trying to undermine democratic processes. 
Whatever is going on, it's clear that worldwide media is changing rapidly. Television, traditional press and advertising face daunting challenges internationally as new habits of consumption threaten the very business model on which they’re based. 
In this series Media Front will investigate and debate the new world which media and journalism has to work in, and the intersections that threaten to derail them.

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