By Shailesh Kapoor
We are at the start of what may be a long election season. Legislative assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Mizoram are scheduled for the month of November. These campaigns will segue into the bigger one, the General Elections in 2024. There’s going to be enough in the news to keep everyone busy for at least six months, perhaps a bit longer.
Of course, when one says “news”, one doesn’t mean print or television anymore. It’s a collective, amorphous mass of sources that intersect and feed into, and from, each other. Earlier this week, Rahul Gandhi interviewed former J&K Governor Satyapal Malik for his YouTube channel. The video has, since then, been widely circulated and discussed on YouTube and social media. But not surprisingly, TV channels and most newspapers have ignored it. Malik is known for being a critic of the Prime Minister, and has gone on record in recent times, including a rather candid interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, about the systemic lapses in the Central Government that led to the Pulwama attack in 2019, at the time of his Governorship.
Why did Rahul Gandhi have to interview Satyapal Malik is as interesting as the interview itself. The interview itself has a conversation on this topic. With mainstream media not giving any coverage of any consequence to the Opposition voices, social media and digital news platforms seem to be their recourse to get themselves heard.
This could be how the media side of the story of the 2024 General Elections plays out. YouTube, and not TV news, could be primary platform where the story unfolds, at least for those hoping to upset BJP, which continues to be a frontrunner to win those elections.
YouTube’s daily and weekly reach in India is not very different from that of the television news genre’s reach. TV carries more credibility than digital media, but purely for legacy reasons. We have seen digital media overtake traditional media as the lead marketing medium in various mainstream domains, including cricket and theatrical films. Politics is next on the list.
Talking of cricket, a rather uneventful Cricket World Cup is underway currently. It’s been more than halfway through the round robin stage of the tournament, and we haven’t had a single nailbiter so far. There have been some exciting games, including the recent India-New Zealand one, and some upsets by Afghanistan and Netherlands. But no game has gone into the last five overs without reasonable clarity on who the winner will be.
Of course, this is an inherent issue with the 50-over format itself. India’s winning streak, now at five matches, has kept the otherwise-drab World Cup alive for fans and sponsors. A semi-final spot is all but assured, and India has a strong chance of being the first team since Australia in 2007 to win a Cricket World Cup without losing a game.
November, then, is expected to be an action-packed month for more than one reason.