Newslaundry tracked 429 primetime segments by six anchors on six prominent TV news channels.
By Shubang Gautam& Ishita Pradeep& Saeeduzzaman
Indian democracy is at a critical juncture, with the world’s largest elections underway, and misinformation rampant. While the country’s press freedom ranking has slipped to 161 and Indian democracy has been categorised as an “electoral autocracy” in the latest V-Dem report, is the media making voters aware of key issues, or glossing over them to praise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government?
Between February 1 and April 12, we tracked 429 segments on primetime shows by six anchors on six prominent TV news channels, to check if issues such as unemployment, inflation, healthcare and education received prominence over divisive agendas. The six categories we placed these telecasts under were anti-opposition, pro-government, Hindu-Muslim or communal, questions for government, jobs and education, and others.
The anchors surveyed included Arnab Goswami of Republic TV, Amish Devgan of News18 India, Navika Kumar of Times Now, Sudhir Chaudhary of Aaj Tak, Sushant Sinha of Times Now Navbharat, and Rahul Shivshankar of CNN-News18.
The analysis was based on the single most prominent topic of the segments of their primetime shows since most of these six anchors have multiple segments within a show. We looked at the statements of the anchors, the agenda of the discussions, and the messaging behind tickers and graphics on screen, to place the segments into these themes according to the larger thrust of the content.
This story was originally published in newslaundry.com. Read the full story here.