His voice was calm as ever, but the message that the famous televisionpresenter Ravish Kumar announced last week caused consternation in the Indianmedia landscape: he was leaving news channel NDTV. Immediately. He had awarning for viewers of the channel. “Every good side of journalism is beingsystematically destroyed in this day and age.”
The ominous words refer to the takeover of the media company by the tycoonGaumat Adani, the richest man in Asia. The media arm of its Adani Enterprisehad already announced in August that it had indirectly acquired a 29 percentstake in NDTV. At the end of November, it opened a public offer to become themajority shareholder. Monday evening it was announced that Adani has acquired37 percent of the shares.
A ‘hostile takeover’ and an attack on press freedom according to critics,because as the largest shareholder he has a say in the approach of the mediacompany. Founders Prannoy and Radhika Roy opposed the takeover and left theholding company that bought Adani. The couple still own shares in NDTV; themajor shareholders could therefore come into conflict with each other.
24-hour news channel
NDTV (New Delhi Television) is one of the few impartial media companies inIndia. It started in the 1980s as a production house for the public and thenonly broadcaster Doordashan. It launched the first 24-hour news channel in1998, today viewers can choose: NDTV India is in Hindi, 24×7 in English. Inthe 2000s it also set up channels for lifestyle and financial news, althoughthese were financially problematic.
Unrest at the top of the media company did little to detract from the image ofNDTV reporting. According to journalist Ruben Banerjee, NDTV expresses a”sound that is scarce in the Indian media”: nuanced and balanced criticism ofboth those in power and the opposition. “Indian TV channels are loud,literally and figuratively. Commentators and anchors screaming andpresenting the news partisan. But at NDTV the news is not in your face ”, hedescribes on the phone.
According to research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism,three quarters of BJP (the ruling party) voters and 81 percent of other votersconsider NDTV a reliable source of information.
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For a long time, the company behind the channels operated independently. Withthe takeover by a conglomerate like that of Adani – he amassed his billions inenergy production and logistics, among other things – this would come to anend. Many other channels, magazines and websites are already owned by anotherIndian tycoon, Mukesh Ambani. These two richest businessmen in India also haveclose ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The billionaire Adani and thepolitician are from the same state. They are seen at dinner parties and in thesame social circles.
In the same period, the press in India has been increasingly curtailed, thejournalists themselves write and international organizations conclude. Modi’sBJP government tolerates little public criticism; journalists are threatenedwith legal prosecution for defamation. Physical violence against reporters hasincreased. The press freedom organization Reporters without Borders droppedIndia several places this year on its annual Press Freedom Index to number150, the country’s worst rating ever.
Lap dogs
Departing NDTV presenter Kumar speaks of a “devastating effect” in thefarewell video he posted on YouTube. He specifically referred to the _god_media’, the term borrowed from Hindi denoting media that meekly take thegovernment’s position as ‘lapdogs’. “Whoever wants to work in journalism nowbecomes a real estate agent [in informatie].”
Fellow journalist BanerjeeThat __wrote abook about the “deep rot” in the Indian press, understands the concerns abouteditorial independence. According to him, however, this has nothing to do withpolitical color: “It is problematic that the media are swallowed up in aconstruction in which business interests are put above real journalism. Nocompany has the courage to go against the government anymore. Adani is not theonly one, certainly not the first, to acquire a media company. The system isharmful.” In recent years, the laws have become stricter and legal actionagainst critical journalists has become more resentful, he agrees. “Thepattern of this influence has now become clear. Each subsequent government nowknows how to pressure the media and control the national narrative.”
For Banerjee, it is encouraging that Ravish Kumar, widely loved, has made hisopposition public. He points out that one million social media userssubsequently subscribed to his YouTube channel: “In any case, there are Indiannews consumers who do need this kind of serious journalism.”
Whether impartial reporting at NDTV would disappear completely after atakeover by Adani remains to be seen. The businessman spoke in an interviewwith the British newspaper Financial Times rather about his ambitions for aglobal Indian media brand.