Some sections of Indian media—controlled by businessmen, politicians, and government
bureaucrats—are facing criticism for
biased, motivated reporting, behaving as one-party-owned or governing-party-owned outlets, and selective presentation. After the devastating
earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015, in spite of
India helping, tweets from
Nepal trended that effectively said, "Go home, Indian media". Disturbed by corruption, Delhi Chief Minister
Arvind Kejriwal made a suggestion on 3 May 2015 to put Indian media outlets on public trial. On 8 May 2015, the then-
I & B Minister,
Arun Jaitley, echoed similar rhetoric, saying that there was a "flood of channels but dearth of facts". A lot of mainstream media channels have lately been accused of printing and telecasting unverified and biased information which they retracted later. In a few instances, content from parody accounts on Twitter were cited as sources. Indian mainstream media has often been accused of showing sensationalized news items. In March 2018, the then-
Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said that, "journalists cannot write anything they imagine and behave as if they are sitting in some pulpit".
Godi media is a pejorative term coined and popularised by former
NDTV journalist
Ravish Kumar referring to sensationalist, biased Indian mainstream media outlets which have supported the ruling
BJP government of India since
2014. In a speech in July 2022, Chief Justice of India
N. V. Ramana criticized Indian media outlets and accused them of running
Kangaroo courts and running agenda-driven debates without any accountability, which he thinks is bad for democracy. A report by
Oxfam and
Newslaundry found out that general category employees constitute around 90% of leadership positions in the Indian media, which means that marginalized communities like
Dalits,
Adivasis and
Bahujans do not have adequate representation. The French NGO
Reporters Without Borders compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of its
Press Freedom Index. In its 2023 downgraded India by 11 points to 161st level out of 180 countries, which places
India below
Afghanistan,
Somalia and
Colombia, and comparable to absolute dictatorships like
Turkey and occupied state of
Palestine, which has been criticized by Indian news outlets as well as officials. It stated its reason saying "The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy”, ruled since 2014 by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, the leader of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and "the embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right." It also stated that Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party and their followers of
Hindutva having greater exertion of control of the media.
Freedom House, a US-based NGO stated in its 2021 report that harassment of journalists increased under
Modi's administration. The English-language media of India are described as traditionally
left-leaning liberal, which has been a point of friction recently due to an upsurge in popularity of
Hindu nationalist politics. According to
BBC News, "A look at Indian news channels - be it English or Hindi - shows that fairly one-sided news prevails. And that side is BJP and Hindutva." == See also ==