By David D’Souza

Copyright mxmindia

Journalism in India isn’t dying. It’s just getting louder, flashier, and more dramatic. Drama belongs in cricket commentary and Bollywood trailers, not in newsrooms. Yet money, management, and the irresistible tug of emotion have nudged many reporters into becoming storytellers first, journalists later.

The first culprit is money. The ad-driven, click-dependent model has made attention the only currency worth chasing. A solid, carefully sourced story may take a week, while a celebrity spat on Instagram can rack up half a million views in half a day. The reward structure is skewed. Reporters are no longer writing for readers; they are writing for algorithms. Headlines are now commodities on an exchange where virality is the ticker price.

The pressure is real. Budgets are being slashed, beats consolidated, and newsrooms shrunk. A young reporter with a hungry editor breathing down her/ his neck will naturally ask: do I file the 2,000-word policy explainer or chase the spicy quote that will get retweeted into orbit? The second option wins far too often. It is not fabrication. It is a curated buffet of what sells. Like street food in Mumbai or Pune – high on taste, light on nutrition.

The second factor is emotion. Journalism without empathy is sterile. Nobody wants a robot describing floods or farmer suicides. In India, empathy often morphs into advocacy. When reporters decide their role is to persuade, not to report, facts get dressed up in costume. Coverage of protests, women’s safety, or the present farmers’ distress due to floods in Maharashtra is a case in point. The stories need telling, but often the writing is designed more to provoke outrage or tug heartstrings than to verify. The difference is subtle. Done right, emotion can give numbers a human face. Done wrong, it is manipulation in the guise of moral crusade.

Management is the third factor. Anyone who has worked in a corporate-owned newsroom knows the invisible leash. Owners don’t have to bark orders. A raised eyebrow in the corner office, a sudden spike in calls from advertisers, or a WhatsApp from the political desk is enough to steer the editorial wheel. Add to that the curse of speed. In the race to be first, accuracy is always the first casualty. Verification is sacrificed on the altar of immediacy, and what emerges is storytelling dressed as news.

These forces were visible even in my early days. I began at the Free Press Journal in 1979, learned the ropes under editors like S Nihal Singh, Vinod Mehta, Behram Contractor, Khalid Ansari, and ended my innings with Khaleej Times and the Associated Press before leaping into PR. The same dynamics were at play then, only with slower deadlines and fewer hashtags. Editors had to wrestle with the line between a good story and a solid report. Some held it with stubborn dignity. Others folded at the first whiff of pressure.

The difference today is scale. The digital universe has made amplification instant and merciless. One dramatic headline can set off a chain reaction across platforms. By evening, television channels are shouting the same line, influencers are offering “takes,” and WhatsApp forwards have turned the story into gospel. The audience, ironically, plays along. We crib about the loss of credibility yet reward the drama with eyeballs. Like ordering pav bhaji at Sardar’s in Tardeo — you know it’s loaded with butter, you know it’s unhealthy, but you can’t resist going back.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the ongoing Asia Cup and the India-Pakistan matches. The coverage is less about cricket and more about packaging. Every shot is wrapped in patriotic fervour, every dismissal treated like a national setback, and every press conference turned into a morality play. What should be sport becomes theatre. The post-match commentary reads like a compliance note drafted by corporate comms, with players mouthing lines designed to avoid controversy while keeping sponsors happy. Cricket deserves analysis, not nationalism in costume. The tragedy is that the audience buys into it. TRPs soar, hashtags trend, and the cycle reinforces itself. Journalism surrenders to spectacle, again.

It would be lazy to say all journalists have turned into performers. Independent platforms, small-town reporters and some investigative teams inside mainstream outlets still dig deep, verify and hold power to account. They remind us that rigor hasn’t vanished. These are the journalists who see storytelling as a tool to humanise facts, not a substitute for them.

At the other end, primetime television thrives on noise, outrage, and emotional theatre. Outrage is both the content and the business model. It works, because we watch. We treat news as entertainment and then complain about why it feels shallow.

The profession is caught in a tug-of-war: accuracy versus attention, empathy versus advocacy, owners versus editors, clicks versus credibility. Storytelling has always existed in journalism. The tragedy is when storytelling replaces truth. That is when journalism stops informing and starts performing.

Performance is addictive. Once you taste the applause, the temptation is hard to resist. A meticulously verified piece rarely goes viral. A spicy headline almost always does. Which one gets rewarded at appraisal time? That answer explains why so many good reporters quietly slip into becoming performers.

This does not mean journalism in India is doomed. The profession has survived censorship, proprietors, advertisers, and governments. What is different now is the velocity of information and the shrinking patience of audiences. The guardrails are still there — verification, accountability, the discipline of evidence — but they require constant, stubborn enforcement.

I have seen both sides. As a journalist, I witnessed how fragile truth could be under pressure. As a PR professional, I saw how easily narratives could be constructed, framed and sold. The line between storytelling and journalism was never straight, but today it feels dangerously blurred. Which is why the responsibility on the journalist’s shoulders is heavier than ever.

So where does that leave us? Somewhere between masala and matter. A bit of spice is fine; India thrives on it. Without substance, you are only serving empty calories. Audiences may enjoy the taste, but sooner or later indigestion sets in.

Journalism is at a crossroads. The temptation to entertain will never go away. The challenge is to resist letting narrative trump fact, shallowness replace depth, or performance take precedence over accountability. Those who hold the line keep the profession alive. Those who don’t become cautionary tales.

If I wanted stories, I would buy a novel. From journalism, I expect facts — even if they come without the masala!

David D’Souza is a former senior journalist, current PR and Communications Consultant, Educator and full-time observer of human absurdity. He lives in Pune and writes for MxMIndia every other Thursday. His views here are personal.