Social media covers news before mainstream, but has no credibility: Sudhir Chaudhary

“The outlook of mainstream media has been shown negatively in the recent past. You put across an opinion out there, be it in favour or against, you will face trolls and backlash,” said Sudhir Chaudhary, Consulting Editor, Aaj Tak.

At the e4m NewsNext Summit 2023, Chaudhary delivered a monologue on how the mainstream media has been suffering because of the way it is perceived. Later, he got into a candid conversation with Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld and exchange4media Group about the reality of mainstream media, its challenges, being trolled and the 2012 arrest.

Chaudhary believes there is an ecosystem that wants the Indian audience to lose trust and credibility in mainstream media.

“As long as the mainstream media was dancing on their cue, they were enjoying it and nurturing the platform. But when the mainstream media started using their own mind, this ecosystem got offended maybe,” he said.

There are so many young journalists who want to become a part of mainstream media. “Imagine how they would be perceiving the state of Indian media. Hence, I feel we should together be united to try and change the way mainstream media is portrayed.”

Every industry faces jealousy and competition. In India, cinema, cricket and politics are some of the largest fraternities of networks and there too exists some competition but you will never see a cricketer speaking ill of fellow cricketers, be it of the rival team, according to the Aaj Tak executive.

In cinema too, no one gives a public opinion on their peers, rather, they at times encourage viewers to go and watch the counterpart’s film only because it portrays a good standard of theatrical work and infiltrates a sense of pride for the whole film industry.

Chaudhary further asked, “Can you imagine a journalist ever directing his viewers to a fellow journalist’s channel or even appreciating his or her work standard? We never even congratulate each other for the prestigious awards we win or milestones we achieve.”

Chaudhary said when he started working there was no social media but now it has developed as a separate ecosystem altogether and covers every news before mainstream media. “But, there is no credibility or authenticity to their news breaks.”

“This cohort of social media is trying to infect people’s minds by feeding them utter lies about mainstream media. From mainstream media being biased to being politically driven, we journalists get to hear everything via trolls and memes,” he said.

Twitter today has more than 2.7 crore audience, out of our 140 crore population which makes it about 1-1.5 per cent of the total audience but Twitter decides our agenda, he said. “Whatever is trending on Twitter throughout the day, is being broadcasted on TV news channels in the evening. In a routine circumstance, mainstream media should decide the agenda for social media but in our country, it’s vice versa,” Chaudhary added,

He further shared, “Another important thing to be noted is, the same user behaves differently on every platform. Facebook, Instagram do not emit as much negativity as Twitter’s level of trolling.”

Lastly, Chaudhary drew the attention to the fact there is a constant ongoing effort out there by external forces to develop fear in the mind of every journalist so they become hesitant before asking any question. This whole game is a well planned and plotted strategy to kill every mainstream media journalist’s urge to ask important questions and the industry together needs to tackle this.