National Press Day: When Will Quality Match Freedom?

Today we mark National Press Day, commemorating the establishment of the Press Council of India in 1966, the body entrusted with safeguarding standards of reportage across Indian media. Its mandate is simple but vital: to uphold ethical journalism and check the quality of the news that reaches citizens. Yet, anyone following Indian media closely will agree that a gulf persists between that mandate and reality, especially in broadcast and digital outlets.
Freedom of expression is a universal right. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts the right to hold opinions and to seek, receive and impart information. And yet journalists worldwide, including in India, face growing pressure: editorial interference from corporate owners, intimidation from state actors, legal harassment, and even violence.
The statistics are grim. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, dozens of journalists have been killed in India since the early 1990s while reporting. In many cases, motives have been linked to their work; in far too many others, perpetrators remain at large. The 2025 World Press Freedom Index placed India near the lower half of rankings (around the 151st slot among 180 countries), a reminder that structural threats to press freedom are real. Our regional neighbours have fared poorly as well.
Beyond the horror stories of arrests, abduction, and murder, there is a quieter, but equally corrosive, crisis: the collapse of reporting quality. Sensationalism, unverified visuals, partisan framing, click-bait headlines, and the relentless 24x7 churn of television channels have eroded the public’s trust. When rigorous reporting yields to speed and spectacle, the watchdog role of the press is compromised.
This erosion cuts deepest outside big cities. Provincial and district reporters working in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, and other regional languages often labour under precarious conditions: meagre pay, irregular salaries, and little or no institutional protection. I have met many of them during field visits; their income is frequently transaction-based, they are paid per item and their safety nets are thin to non-existent. When they expose wrongdoing, they face social ostracism, legal cases, or worse.
So, what has the Press Council of India actually done to arrest this decline? The Council has produced guidelines and issued censures, but critics argue its powers are limited and reactive. It can recommend but not enforce; it can admonish but not penalize effectively. In the era of digital platforms, deep-pocketed media conglomerates and political polarization, a small advisory body alone cannot guarantee quality journalism.
If National Press Day is to mean more than ceremony, we need concrete action on several fronts:
•    Strengthen institutional oversight: Revisit the statutory powers and resources of the Press Council so it can proactively audit standards and impose meaningful sanctions where warranted.
•    Protect journalists: Establish stronger legal protections and rapid response mechanisms for journalists facing threats, especially in district and rural beats.
•    Support local journalism: Create grants, fellowships and welfare schemes for regional language reporters and stringers so reporting is not contingent on sensational scoops.
•    Media literacy: Invest in large-scale public programmes to help citizens distinguish credible reporting from misinformation.
•    Transparency: Newsrooms must disclose ownership, editorial policies and conflicts of interest to rebuild trust.
National Press Day should be not just commemoration but a call to repair journalism’s broken institutions. A free press without quality and safety is not enough; conversely, standards and protection without editorial independence are meaningless. We need both, urgently.