Sameer Roy* remembers vividly the excitement of joining a prominent Indian newsroom in New Delhi about five years ago, upon graduating from a prestigious journalism school.
At first the newsroom seemed like a space that valued journalistic independence and integrity. But Roy soon began to witness a discernible shift.
“Maybe it started dawning on me a little later but there was clearly external interference on editorial decisions by the big corporations and leaders of political parties, particularly those in power,” Roy said. “We had to either change story angles in a way that favored the government or completely censor stories that were critical of them.”
Roy worked in that newsroom, the name of which they prefer also not to disclose, for three years but when the interference intensified they became disillusioned and left for another outlet, hoping for a better editorial culture. Roy did not find an improved situation, and they now intend to leave journalism altogether.
“There is no hope. We have simply become PR machines of the government and the corporations who own us,” Roy said. “News agencies generally avoid reporting anything critical about corporate houses, especially those close to the government.”
The warning signs became unmistakable for Roy when the Adani Group — a corporate behemoth with close government ties — acquired NDTV, one of India’s last reputedly independent outlets.
The pervasive corporate influence, according to Roy, skews coverage and filters out inconvenient truths. They recalled a recent example: during the wedding in Italy of the son of Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries and India's wealthiest person, foreign outlets reported local outrage over the disruption caused by the festivities, but critical coverage was virtually absent in Indian media. “You could sense the silence,” Roy said.
They also explained that public figures and “spiritual gurus” like Baba Ramdev and Jaggi Vasudev — prominent supporters and allies of Modi’s Hindu nationalist right-wing government — remain largely shielded from critique. “When corporate sponsorship is on the line, independent reporting fades. These figures are simply untouchable in mainstream Indian media.”
Erosion of editorial independence
Although corporate influence on Indian media has deep historical roots, the stakes appear higher today. Ruben Banerjee, former editor of the prominent weekly Outlook Magazine, believes that the buffer once separating management and editorial teams has dissolved. “Historically, media in India was always funded by wealthy business families, but now the control is absolute,” Banerjee said. “Editorial decisions are increasingly made by corporate bosses instead of journalists, leaving reporters with limited agency.”
For Banerjee, this shift hit close to home. When, under his leadership Outlook published a cover story critical of the Modi government’s handling of the Covid pandemic, he found his job suddenly on the line. “The same day that cover went viral, I was told [by management] we couldn’t publish such stories anymore,” he said.
Banerjee eventually was removed from his role and the cover story also disappeared from the magazine’s website.
Today, Outlook Magazine, which is owned by the Rajan Raheja Group, a diversified conglomerate with interests in several sectors including media, real estate, and cement, has retreated from hard-hitting journalism, shifting instead to safer topics in a bid to avoid political and corporate backlash, explained Banerjee.
This issue isn’t confined to national media or newsrooms based in the capital of New Delhi, he believes. State-level outlets face similar pressures from regional governments, regardless of party affiliation. “Local ruling parties call the shots just as much as those in power at the center,” he noted. “It is a pan-India issue, not a regional one.”
Burden of self-censorship
As political pressure and corporate influence have permeated newsrooms, self-censorship has become a survival mechanism for many journalists. Reena Sharma*, another former reporter at a mainstream media outlet, recalled being instructed to skip certain stories due to “outside pressure.” In one case, their editor explicitly asked them to avoid covering a high-profile drug case involving a public figure.
“After a point in time journalists themselves decide not to pursue such stories as we know editors will decline them. There is a lot of self censorship creeping in,” they said.
The corporate and political influence damages journalism’s core values and undercuts its role as a check on power, Sharma fears. “There’s a growing sense that democracy is being compromised because people are only seeing a filtered version of the truth,” they said.
Saqlain Ahmed*, a former producer with a major TV News channel shared similar experiences. Ahmed recalled how their editors discouraged them from covering the farmer protests against agricultural laws widely viewed as favorable to corporate interests. Although their superiors never gave a direct reason, the influence of powerful corporations loomed large.
“They didn’t say why, but it was clear: these laws were benefiting big corporate players,” Ahmed said. “Corporate journalism is now a tool for creating a favorable environment for business.”
A system under siege
Veteran activist and co-founder of Act Now for Harmony and Democracy, Shabnam Hashmi described the media’s transformation in India as a symptom of a broader issue: the convergence of corporate and political power.
“National media is controlled through corporations close to Modi’s government, like Adani and Ambani,” said Hashmi, who has long been vocal about the deterioration of democratic values and institutions in the country. For her, too, the takeover of NDTV epitomized the erosion of independent journalism. “When corporations have financial control, journalists become mere puppets,” she said.
Reporters Without Borders’ 2024 World Press Freedom Index ranks India 159 out of 180 countries, attributing the low assessment largely to political pressure and the influence of corporate ownership. “India’s media has fallen into an ‘unofficial state of emergency’ since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 and engineered a spectacular rapprochement between his party, the BJP, and the big families dominating the media,” the report noted.
Hashmi added that instructions from government entities, even those outside the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, have become commonplace. “We hear about direct orders from the Home Ministry dictating what can and cannot be shown in the media,” she said. As a result, stories that might embarrass the government, such as drug seizures at corporate-owned ports, disappear from public view. “There’s no room for dissent or even honest reporting,” she said.
For Hashmi, the situation evokes memories of India’s Emergency period in the 1970s, when government censorship reigned supreme. But today, she said, journalists don’t even have the freedom to publish a blank column in protest. “You either praise the government or stay silent,” she said.
It is democracy ultimately that suffers when people lose trust in the media, Hashmi warned, highlighting the negative, lasting consequences that concentrated media ownership may lead to in the country. The lack of varied viewpoints, she argued, risks turning Indian media into a monolithic entity that simply reflects the government’s preferred narrative.
“When corporate and political interests dominate, the media becomes an echo chamber.”
* Interview subjects preferred not to disclose their real names.
Photo by Aman Tyagi on Unsplash.
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