Shailaja Bajpai in the Indian Express:
“If it’s Saturday, it must be Narendra Modi. If it’s Sunday, it must be Modi. If it’s Monday, it must be Modi and even if it’s Tuesday, it must be Modi. You get the general drift?
“Every day is Modi-day on television news. One morning, they telecast his speech live from Ahmedabad, then it’s Delhi, followed by Kolkata. Boy, does the chief minister of Gujarat get around. Looks like he’s on a Bharat darshan and TV news is on Modi darshan.
“The media is, quite literally, the medium for his message….
“It suits the media to promote Modi, and not only because he’s the front-runner in BJP’s prime ministerial race. At a time when advertising is becoming a serious concern for many news channels and TRAI is trying to restrict advertising to 12-minutes per hour on TV, they need to keep costs down.
“And like every other malaise that afflicts the country, Modi seems to offer a cure: he’s charismatic but contentious and therefore generates conflict and strong reactions — ideal for TV. He offers high viewership at low cost for cash-strapped TV news.”
Read the full article: Much ado about Modi
IJR 
Shailajaji needn’t worry, Modiji’s speeches are followed
by analysts’ Modi-bashing!
TRPs apart, many – in MSM, ‘so-called’ intelligentsia and not the least, NGOs – depend on Narendra Modi for survival. He is their meal-ticket. It is as if someone (it’s not difficult to guess who) pays for every bickering, crack, criticism, derision and taunt against Modi. Some do it to be in the good books of the Congress and some for pelf. Criticizing Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots gets them post-retirement sinecures, Rajya Sabha seats, grants and awards. Arundhati Roy spun tales – euphemism for lies – about the riots (published by OUTLOOK) for whatever returns she got. At least two electronic media journalists made their careers over the dead bodies of the 2002 riots and Modi’s presumed role in them.
More than Modi, its the modi bashing that ensures their flow of funds from the ruling alliance
Somebody forgot to mention Paid News. Modi’s twenty crore budget for ‘public relations’ will certainly have many of the marketing/editors salivating for a piece of the pie …
Get wiser! Haven’t you heard that after ‘the Prince’ was coronated Vice President, CON has allocated Rs 100 Cr as Social Media budget – quite apart from the thousands of crores its governments spend for releasing advertisements in the mainstream media. Never mind the misuse of public funds but the advertisements sing paeans to its long dead leaders on their birth and death anniversaries! It is needless to point out that the thousands of crores are spent for advertisements to sing paeans to the long dead leaders only of the dynasty! Who is complaining? Certainly not a thankful mainstream media!
… Haven’t you heard that … CON has allocated Rs 100 Cr as Social Media budget …
I hadn’t heard about this, but I am inclined to believe you.
Both Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have spoken at large on the overpowering role of money in indian politics and the need to curb it to reduce the influence of corporate lobbying. Rahul Gandhi had even voiced an opinion that state funding of candidates in an electoral campaign, may be a good idea.
But the understated, unpublicised brilliance of Rahul Gandhi’s politics is the way he has gone about to insulate himself and curb the big businesses influence over the Indian National Congress.
His reorganization of the National Student Union of India (NSUI) and the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), when he was the general secretary, resulted in the increase of members from 2 lakhs to more than 40+ lakhs. The membership fee ranges from Rs. 5 to Rs. 15 (for the IYC), and membership has to be renewed every 2 years.
That’s approximately 5 crores of money volunteered from the youth organizations alone! Apart from this, I think parent body members (workers) have to raise money / donate at the minimum Rs. 25 / year, apart from the usual membership renewal fees. (I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if they raised, at the minimum, 25-30 crores / year from the workers alone).
That leaves a good amount of money for various political campaigns, including the ones you mentioned.
Of course, during elections, they still have to turn to corporates for some funding. However, I am sure Rahul Gandhi will be doing a lot more in the coming years to ensure that the Congress – and also indian politics – doesn’t have to depend on the big businesses to survive and flourish.
Modi is trending everywhere & you talk about him to get easy publicity either in favour or against him. Take this blog, for instance: its many times 0 comments for stories but write on Modi, the impact is visible