Assembly elections 2018: Is the era of ‘Godi Media’ over?

When the results for assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram were being announced, Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav predicted on Tuesday that “a section of Godi media is likely to change it’s tune now.”

“We’ve seen one of the worst phase for Indian media ever. From tomorrow onwards, I expect the media would be a little more balanced, a little more correct in reporting what’s actually happening in the country and that would make 2019 into more of a level-playing ground than it had been so far,” he remarked, while listing “BJP’s five Ms” that got adversely impacted in the “critical” assembly elections.

“With a lot of shame, I must ironically say I could not disagree with the last point that you have made. The media has a lot of soul-searching to do,” the anchor concluded, corroborating his take on the pro-establishment media.

Yadav, who spearheaded a massive farmers' protest at the Ramlila Maidan here recently, later put out the following tweet:

As the election results began showing Congress leading in the BJP-ruled Hindi heartland, Twitter users also started lambasting ‘Godi Media’. While some of the users called out media’s reluctance to give credit to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, others wondered how a section of media, especially TV channels, would handle the unanticipated elections’ outcome.

Here’s a collection of the reactions:

Interestingly, while the most prominent BJP faces were conspicuously missing from most of the TV talk-shows, Congress spokespersons appeared on some news-channels after several years.

An article titled, Suddenly Rahul, published by the Newslaundry read: “A section of the television media that couldn't see anything right with the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, has suddenly found in him the leader the Opposition has been waiting for.”

“Over the past four years, Gandhi was derided for being an utter failure. All of that seems history (for now) on the back of the recently-concluded state elections,” it added.

Another piece published by ThePrint, Media gives Rahul a hand, thumbs down to BJP, and guess who was on Times Now, that analysed the election results’ coverage by the print and electronic media, stated: “Today, the newspapers agreed with the public in three states: it was time to give the Congress a hand.”