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00:00Now that the general elections are over, this is a time for reflection in the Indian legacy
00:07media. We know now that for the last decade or so, legacy newsrooms have essentially become
00:14an extension of the government's propaganda wing. It's shameful how the so-called mainstream
00:20media has completely abdicated its duty, its role, and ended up essentially regurgitating
00:26whatever the government has wanted it to do. And that's why the results came as a shock
00:30to many of these so-called godi media anchors on the 4th of June who had been predicting
00:35a landslide victory for the BJP and berating those who did not agree with their point of
00:40view. Suddenly, many of them sounded a lot more softer, a lot more chastened. But the
00:46question that everyone wanted to ask was whether this would actually lead to a change in the
00:51way they report the news. That's really not the case. If you watch these news channels
00:55in particular closely even now, they are still very much godi media, and they're not
01:00going to change in a hurry. And I argue in this piece that those who do try to take a
01:05u-turn now have completely lost their credibility in any case, and I wouldn't really depend
01:10on them to bring you fair and objective news. As I wrote earlier, the real stars of this
01:15election have been the YouTubers, the digital media platforms that have stuck their necks
01:20out with solid ground reporting and commentary to bring you the reality of what is happening
01:27on the ground in India. And these are the news outlets that are actually doing real
01:33journalism. And that's why the government now wants to control or regulate what digital
01:38content creators are doing online as well. That's part of a new bill that is currently
01:43in the draft stage that the government is looking to bring more control over. That's
01:49a separate debate and one that I think will see an intensified controversy in the days
01:54and weeks ahead. But for the Indian media, this is a moment of reckoning. We can either
02:00choose to sink or we can choose to redeem ourselves.