Reasons behind Indian media’s disastrous war coverage

A US newspaper explains why Indian TV channels aired false reports, manipulated visuals, and amplified unverified claims during the four-day war

NEWS ANALYSIS

June 6, 2025

INDIA is rightly recognised as the world’s largest democracy, not only because of its population of 1.4 billion, but also due to the relative maturity of its democratic traditions. Barring the 1975-77 period, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a State of Emergency on the country, Indian democracy has remained largely intact and functional.

In contrast, Pakistan has experienced prolonged spells of military rule. Democracy in the country has endured a turbulent, stop-start existence, repeatedly disrupted by coups and authoritarian regimes.

Given this backdrop, one might have expected the Indian media — particularly television news channels — to display a greater degree of responsibility and professionalism. However, during the brief but intense conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours last month, the Indian media presented a deeply troubling spectacle, frequently airing false and unverified reports.

While Pakistani journalists too were guilty of parroting official narratives without scrutiny, they generally refrained from peddling as many falsehoods as their Indian counterparts.

A detailed report by Karishma Mehrotra, published in The Washington Post, chronicled the Indian media’s failures in depth. According to Mehrotra: “Times Now Navbharat wrongly reported that Indian forces had entered Pakistan; TV9 Bharatvarsh claimed Pakistan’s prime minister had surrendered; Bharat Samachar said he was hiding in a bunker. These, along with some of India’s largest channels — including Zee News, ABP News and even NDTV — repeatedly announced that major Pakistani cities had been destroyed.

“To support their claims, they broadcast unrelated visuals — footage from conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, a plane crash in Philadelphia, and even scenes from video games.”

One particularly egregious incident stood out. Mehrotra reported that just after midnight on 9th May, a journalist received a WhatsApp message from Prasar Bharati, the state-owned broadcaster, claiming that Pakistan’s army chief had been arrested and a coup was underway.

“Within minutes, the journalist shared the information on X (formerly Twitter), and others followed suit. The story was soon plastered across major Indian news networks and went viral on social media.

“The ‘breaking news’ was entirely false. There had been no coup in Pakistan. Gen Asim Munir was not under arrest — he was, in fact, poised for elevation to field marshal. This was the most glaring, though by no means the only, example of how misinformation spread like wildfire in Indian newsrooms.”

Why has the quality of Indian television journalism declined so sharply?

Mehrotra’s report, titled “How misinformation overtook Indian newsrooms amid conflict with Pakistan”, offers some answers. She attributes much of the media’s pliability to either opportunism or external pressure — particularly from India’s rightwing government. She notes: “Some of India’s largest channels now routinely echo government talking points, analysts say — whether out of ideological alignment with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party or due to pressure from the state. Journalists have been prosecuted under terrorism, sedition and defamation laws, and faced regulatory action and tax probes designed to silence critical voices.”

For many prominent anchors, toeing the government line has become a strategic career move. In such an environment, diverging from the official position — especially during wartime — is virtually unthinkable.

Compounding the problem, retired military officers such as Gen G.D. Bakshi and Maj Gaurav Arya appeared on television not to separate fact from fiction but to reinforce government claims without scrutiny. With ministers largely absent from the airwaves, the burden of interpreting events fell to anchors and their panels — many of whom preferred chest-thumping hyperbole over informed analysis.

Commenting on this vacuum, The Washington Post quoted Nirupama Rao, a former Indian foreign secretary, as saying: “As the fighting escalated night after night, few Indian officials appeared to explain the situation. The vacuum was filled by ‘hypernationalism’ and ‘abnormal triumphalism’, creating what she called a ‘parallel reality’.”

According to the report, some government officials deliberately sought to sow chaos and confusion on both sides of the border, aiming to disorient the enemy — knowing that many Pakistanis closely followed Indian channels. Their goal was to achieve dubious tactical or psychological advantages through misinformation.

In a rapidly evolving conflict, the responsibility for shaping public understanding lay squarely on the shoulders of the media. But the anchors who should have steered the ship in the right direction failed to do so. Instead of rising to the occasion, they allowed journalistic standards to plummet — undermining public trust and distorting the truth at a moment when clarity was most needed.