Vol. 11, Issue 11 (2022)

Most of the Indian news channels have moved from serious news reporting and analysis to tabloid television that is sensational, impactful and dramatic format which relies more on breaking news of every kind rather than serious news. The prime time has become a platform for political debates where representatives of major political parties speak less on merit of issues and more about party view point, thus making their presence redundant as far as the issue is concerned. Media credibility is known to be situational. When media report and debate major events of national importance, audiences’ credibility perceptions about the media are known undergo a change either in the positive or negative direction. Elections to legislative bodies are of great importance to democratic societies. And when the election schedule gets announced, news and debate programmes of television news channels become election-centric. But viewers’ educational attainment and occupation had a bearing on their credibility assessments. These results unfailingly indicate that media credibility is situational. The debates shown the government, then the government makes a constitution and implements the issues among the people.