Election Beat – Indian Media and the 2024 General Election

Jun 02 2024 15 ep. 31 mins 4

Election Beat – Indian Media and the 2024 General Election Podcast artwork

Election Beat examines the Indian media’s coverage of the 2024 general election and what that reveals about the relationship between the media and political power in the world’s largest democracy. It is hosted by Nirupama Subramanian, a print journalist who, over more than four decades, has worked with the Indian Express, The Hindu and India Today, and Savyasaachi Jain, who has been a journalist, documentary filmmaker and international trainer, and now teaches at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture. Edited by Adwitiya Pal.

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15. S. Y. Quraishi - Transparency is key for the Election Commission not to lose public trust

Jun 02 2024 39 mins

In this episode, former Chief Election Commissioner, S. Y. Quraishi, says that transparency is the key to public trust for an institution like the Election Commission of India. Even though he refused to comment on the conduct of the Election Commission now, he says he would never have kept political parties waiting for a meeting. He would have held as many press conferences as requ

14. Pratik Sinha - A lot more misinformation came from the very top in these elections

May 31 2024 33 mins

In this episode, Pratik Sinha, founder of AltNews, the fact-checking and media watchdog website, says the amount of misinformation spread directly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is much more than in 2019 or 2014. He also says that misinformation peaks during periods when “narratives have to be managed”, giving the example of how blaming the Tab

13. Pervaiz Alam - BBC has toned down its criticism of Modi and the government

May 29 2024 31 mins

In this episode of Election Beat, senior broadcaster Pervaiz Alam, who began his career at All India Radio and worked at BBC World Service for several years, says the coverage of the 2024 elections by YouTubers is a point of interest in the western media's coverage of the elections. Pervaiz Alam also speaks about the restructuring of the BBC after the “tax survey” carried o

12. K. G. Suresh - “It’s no more about news, it's about ideology”

May 28 2024 33 mins

In this episode, K G Suresh, Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Journalism and Communication in Bhopal, and formerly PTI's chief political correspondent who’s also worked at Asian News Network, says television journalism in India has been a "big disappointment". He asks what credibility can studio analyses of the ground situation have without reportage fr

11. Umesh Upadhyay - Western media thinks it’ll decide which government should be formed in India

May 27 2024 29 mins

In this episode, Umesh Upadhyay, a former head of TV18 and author of Western Media Narratives On India: From Gandhi to Modi, claims that international coverage of India is biased and is used by western governments to further their own foreign policy goals in the country. He says foreign media’s coverage of India’s situation and circumstances during COVID was “very biased”,

10. Vamsee Juluri - Media should be “more truthful, less greedy, less scared of politicians”

May 26 2024 28 mins

In this episode of Election Beat, Vamsee Juluri, professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco, and the author of Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Intelligence, says the Indian media is too focused on Hindu nationalism to please politicians and therefore fails in its duty of civilisational revival. He observes that TV channels are noisy and t

9. Manisha Pande - TV works as the government’s megaphone

May 24 2024 34 mins

In this episode, Manisha Pande, managing editor of Newslaundry and writer and host of TV Newsance, a critique of broadcast news, says the most troubling development of the last few years is that television news has turned against the people whose travails it is supposed to cover. Even public rejection of certain TV channels by people on the ground, their refusal to speak to reporte

8. Sitaraman Shankar - Politicians need to develop a thicker skin

May 22 2024 27 mins

In this episode of Election Beat, Sitaraman Shankar, editor of Deccan Herald and CEO of the group that publishes Deccan Herald and Prajavani, says the government needs to be more transparent, interact with the media more and do less headline management. He says the newspaper’s editorial positions that are often critical of the Modi government are not about being anti-BJP, but are

7. Saba Naqvi - YouTubers are the important corrective on the media scene

May 19 2024 42 mins

In this episode of Election Beat, senior political journalist, commentator and writer Saba Naqvi speaks about the sanitisation of hate speeches in the mainstream media through “factual coverage”, and the absence of outrage at the egregious statements made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She says media houses are “running” to do “safe” interviews with Modi, in which fol

6. Vinod Pavarala - “I’m telling my students to stop watching television news”

May 16 2024 32 mins

In this episode, Vinod Pavarala, Senior Professor of Communication at the University of Hyderabad, says news media are promoting a singular narrative which permeates across the society and ends up negating the country's plurality. He says that the free media in a democracy like India is expected to do a lot more than follow “objectivity rituals”, such as he said-she said re