ON 22 OCTOBER, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation for the tenth time since the pandemic started. He announced, to great fanfare, the achievement of a “vaccine century.” Hospitals, clinics and health centres across the country had managed to administer a billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines since the beginning of the year. “A hundred crore vaccine jabs is just not a number,” he said. “It is the reflection of the capacity of this country. This is a new chapter for the country, a country that knows how to achieve huge targets.” He went on, “Everyone questioned whether India will be able to do it. Hundred crore vaccine shots is an answer to all the questions.”
The day before the announcement, television news channels such as India Today, Times Now and CNN News18 broadcast live counting up to the billion-dose mark. Times Now covered the event throughout the day, with the news ticker “Bharat Billion Boosts” running alongside Modi’s photograph. “This is the India Model that the world is now looking up to, from the WHO, the United Nations, to all the developed countries,” a Times Now anchor standing next to a screen displaying the countdown proclaimed. “We have done it, India has done it!” the anchor said as the countdown reached zero.
The next morning, India’s newspapers carried big bold headlines on the government’s vaccine landmark. The Indian Express’ headline was “Vacci-Billion-Nation.” The Times of India went with “100 cr shots the arm” and the sub headline “India now a vaccine billionaire.” Most English dailies even carried the same opinion piece by Modi on how this milestone was achieved. The Hindustan Times carried two pieces alongside Modi’s opinion column. One was by RS Sharma, the CEO of the National Health Authority, on how the vaccination-registration platform Co-WIN was inclusive and dynamic. The other was by Ram Madhav, the national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, on the Hindutva ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay’s “integral humanist philosophy.” In effect, the newspaper had a full opinion page by the government and its supporters boosting its image.
Neither Modi’s address nor his opinion column mentioned the devastating consequences of the second wave of COVID-19, which resulted in more than two hundred and fifty thousand recorded deaths—a very conservative estimate due to widespread undercounting. He also said nothing about the vaccine shortage and the haphazard roll-out that had characterised the past months. The “vaccine century” hype itself came when only a little more than twenty percent of the population was fully vaccinated, leaving the majority of Indians vulnerable.
This uncritical reproduction of government statements has been one of the recurring themes of the mainstream media covering COVID-19 in India. Publications and news channels have also often given inordinate amounts of space and airtime to commentators who do not have specific expertise and played up less relevant statistics. Most mainstream media fell in line with the government’s directives to boost its image in managing the pandemic. As The Caravan reported in March 2020, Modi asked media owners and editors to refrain from negative coverage. However, even publications and channels that aimed for balanced coverage fell short on many counts.
Much of this was also because, when the pandemic hit India and took over many successive news cycles, most newsrooms lacked depth in health reporting as a specialisation. All journalists were thrown into pandemic reporting in some capacity. Few had the know-how or resources to interpret the barrage of information about the new, complex and
