Arnab Goswami should be grateful to Saddam Hussain, as should Ekta Kapoor.

The former Iraqi dictator’s rather swift annexation of oil-rich Kuwait in 1990 led to the Gulf War, which exacerbated an already perilous balance of payments crisis in India and brought the energy-dependent Indian economy to its knees. The then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister Manmohan Singh were left with little choice but to break the shackles of the so-called ‘license quota Raj’, liberalise the economy, and open the floodgates to foreign and private investment.

“Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius,” Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th century Conservative British prime minister, had once said. Whether liberalisation was Rao’s genius or Singh’s has been debated ad infinitum in the last two decades and a half. But that is a facetious debate, of interest to only political scientists and economic historians. What’s far more interesting is to see how this desperate move — or rather a series of them — changed nearly everything for a sixth of humanity.

Like nearly all other sectors of the Indian economy, the media too was transformed by liberalisation, with the sudden mushrooming of privately-owned national and later regional news and entertainment TV channels, hundreds of print publications, FM radio, and of course the Internet.

The press is the invisible fourth pillar that holds up the edifice of a democracy. Journalists should, in theory at least, work for “public good” even as they remain staunchly independent of both the state and big business. While journalists remain in close proximity to the wielders of power, it is their duty to be neither influenced nor bullied by them. And, in an ideal world, a journalist should remain faceless.

This was mostly the case till the 1990s. In fact, India’s independent press was a legacy of its long freedom struggle. Free India inherited a vibrant press, which was owned by private businessmen and industrialists, but was considered largely free from blemish. Although newspapers and magazines were commercial entities, the owners’ intentions were mostly never to profiteer. There was a clear demarcation — a laxmanrekha of sorts — between the editorial and marketing wings. The flip side, of course, was that the reporters and editors were poorly paid. But in that poverty, was a sense of honour.

Not only did the oil price shock in the wake of the Gulf War inadvertently quicken the pace of economic reform in India, it also coincided with the advent of satellite television in the country. Turner Broadcasting owned CNN and Hong Kong-based Star TV began beaming into India, ending the monopoly of the state broadcaster Doordarshan for good. Soon enough local players like Subash Chandra-owned Zee entered the fray and before the turn of the century, Indians were spoilt for choice.

A free-market can give you choice, but not necessarily quality. In fact, assembly lines are what keep shop floors running and profitable. Once a product begins to sell, it is cloned, copied or reverse-engineered and then repackaged and sold, as long as the consumer is willing to buy. And that is exactly what happened to entertainment TV.

The likes of Ekta Kapoor perfected the art of selling teary-eyed saas-bahu soap operas and raked in the profits. On channel after channel, the same script played out as one drama became indistinguishable from theother. The avant garde was muzzled by mush.

This is not to suggest that all this was necessarily bad for the industry. If anything, it continues to sustain thousands of actors and directors, producers and editors, technicians and costume designers, several among whom, have gone on to do critically-acclaimed work on the big screen.

Yet, the fact remains that only a handful today are willing to experiment, because the stakes are simply too high.

In the news media too, there was a churn. The new free-market economy meant that the old, established, territorial order had to give way to the new. Behemoths like The Times of India, Hindustan Times and The Hindu, along with their Hindi or vernacular counterparts had to fight to retain their market share. This ensured intense price wars and an ever-increasing reliance on advertising revenue and marketing deals. The marketer now had a seat on the editorial table. If the media of yore had kept commerce at bay, the media of today is a commercial beast.

Kapoor and her ilk cashed in on Indians’ love for melodrama while Goswami and his tribe tapped into their collective angst. Old style, rigorous journalistic reporting has been the main casualty, with primetime TV debates bringing in the eyeballs and consequently advertising revenue. This is the age of the spin doctor, the commentator and the ‘influencer’. Reporters be dammed.

Further, the advent of the Internet, by the turn of the century, and the mainstreaming of social media during the following decade, have been both a blessing and a curse. The Internet has democratized the entire news space: if you have a good story, you have a reader, irrespective of how big or small your platform is. But at the same time, this audience isn’t willing to pay.

Here is where we need to stop and ponder over the state of the invisible pillar. Pillars need strong foundations, but foundations need to be reinforced from time to time and this requires craftsmanship; which, in turn, needs resources.

Journalism is a craft learnt, not in a school, a newsroom or a studio, but on the beat. It requires a willingness to persevere, with little or no reward in sight. And media owners need to give their editors and reporters that luxury of space and time. Journalists too need to introspect. While it is true that, but for the relentless pursuit by the media, none of the umpteen scams that have made the headlines since the 1990s would have come to light, it is equally true that some prominent journalists have actively sought a stake in power and a share of the spoils. A few black sheep have brought irreparable disrepute to the entire profession.

Media marketers today generate a bulk of resources, but a marketer merely knows how to window-dress. He cannot make a product better. A demanding customer, on the other hand, can.

What Indian journalism seems to lack today is a discerning, paying audience. A reader, who demands a good story, and is willing to pay for it. That way, not only does your product become better, you also remain accountable to the reader, whose interest you ultimately seek to serve.