It is common, these days, to hear people complaining about the media’s tendency to go on and on about a story. There is too much overkill, we are told. There is too much self-righteous indignation and outrage.

   Some of this is, undoubtedly, true. But what is undeniable is that the media have changed the rules of the game. The era of news channels coincided with the first BJP government and it was lucky that there was only Star News to contend with. In those days, Kargil was accorded a flag-waving, rah-rah style of coverage. Few hard questions were asked about the military failures that led to the Pakistani occupation of our bunkers.

   But as news channels have multiplied and grown more aggressive, the questions have got harder and the coverage has become far more biting. In the old days, politicians acted as though news channels reached only a tiny minority of voters and, therefore, did not matter. The reach may not have increased that dramatically but there is no denying that today’s politicians are extremely sensitive to anything that appears on TV. In a very real sense, they consider themselves accountable to news channels.

   You can see the increase in the power of news channels if you compare events that took place before the news TV era and contrast them with recent events. Would Shashi Tharoor have had to resign if there were no news channels? Would the entire IPL mess have been discovered without the influence of news channels? Cricket corruption is not new. But it wasn’t till the news channels got to work that it became a big story. Ministers have often acted in ways that may seem improper. But it is the aggressive media coverage that has pushed them into resigning in today’s era.

   Three obvious instances of the change between then and now strike me. The first is the suicide of Ruchika Girhotra. This took place long before the news channels became functional and hence did not cause a major uproar. Considering the outrage that greeted the sentencing of SPS Rathore and the TV channels’ campaign to have Rathore re-arrested, it seems safe to say that the case would have gone very differently in a media age.

   The uproar over compensation for Bhopal victims is yet another example. It is shameful that the victims have had to wait 25 years for some measure of justice. But here’s my question: would they have had to wait this long if the TV channels had been around then.

   And then, there are the communal riots. The BJP always complains that Gujarat received disproportionate condemnation because it was the first televised riot. Without wishing to lessen the horror of Gujarat in any way, there is no doubt that previous riots such as Bombay in 1993 and Delhi in 1984 did not pose many problems for the government of the day because there were no TV channels to fan the outrage.

   So yes, I accept many of the criticisms of the TV channels. They can be shrill, repetitive and superficial. But none of that takes away from the accountability they have brought to Indian society.