As India’s biggest business house Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) goes through the motions of formally taking complete control of one of India’s biggest TV networks, Network 18, the veteran journalist and commentator Kuldip Nayar writes in Deccan Herald:
“I was not surprised when television channels did not cover the taking over of a large TV news network by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited.
“Most channels — roughly around 300 — are owned by property dealers who can afford to spend Rs 1 crore, an average monthly expenditure, through money laundering. Every one of them wants to be the Reliance one day.
“What has taken me aback is that the press has reported the deal but has preferred to keep quiet.
“Even though journalism has ceased to be a profession and has become an industry, I was expecting some reactions, at least from the Editors’ Guild of India. But then it is understandable when it has rejected my proposal that editors should also declare their assets public, the demand which they voice for politicians.
“Double standards make a mockery of the high pedestal on which the media sit.”
Read the full column: Where’s free media?
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Also read: Will RIL-TV18-ETV deal win CCI approval?
Reliance has no ‘direct’ stake in media companies
IJR 
Did all outlets under that new umbrella report the takeover? New York Times allowed its Labour correspondent to cover their industrial relations disputes just like other newspapers reported it.