How India’s news media became an elaborate PR machine: It’s the economy, stupid By Aunindyo Chakravarty 22 Sep, 2021 https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/09/22/how-indias-news-media-became-an-elaborate-pr-machine-its-the-economy-stupid?fbclid=IwAR1Lf_xA8pjv5bacUnx31r4akq5eSNSa6bKkyySsOo6qI3CKXonkkLPhg1U
The boom of the 2000s met the inevitable decline of 2008, followed by a political atmosphere that was hostile to independent journalism.
In the early 2000s, when stock markets were booming across the world, Media companies made the most of it by listing their shares on the bourses. Within the companies, there was a sense of euphoria ...As the media business was flooded with funds, employers could offer top dollar to poach – or retain – their key talents. News media salaries went through the roof and editors and top anchors began to earn what their peers in the corporate world were getting. All this was happening without any commensurate increase in advertising revenues. News companies were almost entirely running their operations with money they had raised from the markets or through stake sales. Some companies began to make strategic investments in unrelated businesses. Even journalists were being paid a part of their salary in employee stock ownership plans, or ESOPs.
Then 2008 happened. Every bloated stock – media, power, infrastructure – that was based on promises of “future” earnings got decimated. Newsrooms started to shed flab and become “efficient”. Bench-strength was reduced sharply. News-gathering budgets were slashed, and newsrooms turned to agencies, like PTI and ANI, for routine coverage.
As news channels moved away from ground reports and investigations, loud chat shows took over. This was very inexpensive TV. All you needed was an anchor and a few guests and an incendiary, polarising topic.
2018 -Given their low earnings and the high net debt on their books, listed TV news companies needed much better earnings growth than they could show to their investors. This is what caused the second big round of retrenchments in 2018. Managements in media houses decided to contract and survive, instead of trying to expand. If there were any investments, they were in the digital side of the business. Since new hires in the digital space had never seen the fabulous salaries of the 2000s, they could be paid less. In a sense, digital media could be sustainable right from the beginning because it didn’t have the legacy costs of the boom period. In the midst of a political atmosphere that was increasingly becoming hostile to independent journalism, news organisations decided that the only way to survive was to become cheerleaders of the government. Editors, anchors and journalists who were critical of the government were slowly eased out.
Older journalists in these mainstream media companies are now mostly jaded. They treat journalism as just any other job. A young crop has also emerged, poorly trained and poorly paid. They have no exposure to journalistic ethics