(Like the country's political, constitutional, industrial and social structures, the media sector also needs a deep review, self-examination and reform. The flood of 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' has made the sensitive role of credible, responsible and accountable journalism even more necessary. In this context, Kantipur has started a debate series to give special space to criticism, critique, review and suggestions. We look forward to the participation of stakeholders and experts in an objective and responsible debate.)

In the 62/63 people's movement, the mainstream Nepali media was called the 'eighth party'. There were seven parties on the streets, but the media was doing the work of bringing their voices, strategies, legitimacy and moral force to the people. At that time, the media was not just a carrier of information, it was an engine of political consciousness.

However, almost two decades later, when the Gen-G rebellion flared up - the media was not seen in that role. Instead, the biggest contradiction in history was seen - when the movement was going on, the media was not at the center of the movement, but on the sidelines. Strategies were formed on 'Discord' and Telegram, crowds gathered on Facebook Live and TikTok, and the claim that the Prime Minister's election was decided through voting on 'Discord' made headlines in the world's media.

The Nepali mainstream media, however, took note of those events later, often with a sense of skepticism. This was not just a victory of technology, but a defeat of the media. This failure raised a serious question— Why did a generation completely reject the mainstream media and create its own parallel communication structure?

Old power, lost influence

There was a time when the mainstream media used to be the ‘final say’ on what to think, what to believe, what is wrong and what is right in the country. The morning newspaper would set the direction of the day. Hourly bulletins on the radio would continue the debate. The evening television news would leave the final mark. That structure has now collapsed.

Today, the crowd is on Facebook Live. Today, the explanation is on a 15-minute video on YouTube. Today, the debate is limited to a 30-second clip on TikTok. Today, the trust is not on a ‘senior editor’ who has spent decades in this profession, but on an ‘influencer’ who lives abroad and makes videos on his mobile phone. This change is not just a generational one, but the result of institutional failure.

The question arises here—who weakened the mainstream media? The government? Technology? Social media algorithms? Or the new generation? The answer is both simple and inconvenient. All these are reasons, but only auxiliary ones. The main culprit is the mainstream media itself. They have gradually lost their influence, moral strength and credibility with their own hands. This article is an attempt to explore some of the major turning points in that suicidal journey.

Trust: The media's lost capital

The real capital of the media is not the printing press, not the television tower, not the expensive studio - it is trust. However, in the last decade, the Nepali mainstream media has made mistakes that are clearly visible to the reader. They published news without checking the facts. They made sensational headlines of unconfirmed information. They gave the cover of 'trusted sources' to rumors.

It is not unnatural to make mistakes. Errors in human actions are also natural. However, the behavior followed by mistakes shows the character of the organization. This is where the Nepali media made the biggest mistake. It could not admit the mistake. It hesitated to say 'sorry'. Somewhere, ‘error correction’ was printed in small print, somewhere, the news was quietly removed from the online media, and somewhere, the reader was even blamed – saying ‘we were misunderstood’.

However, readers are not stupid. The idea that media that does not admit mistakes is not trusted is not a communication theory, but a common human behavior. Where trust decreases, influence automatically disappears. It takes years to build trust, but one mistake and subsequent dishonesty are enough to destroy it.

There is a serious lack of ‘correction culture’ in Nepali media. The mentality of not wanting to admit mistakes, and the tendency to not show transparency even when they admit them, is widespread. Vague language such as ‘what happened differently has been corrected’ is used. Was it printed differently? What should have been done? These questions remain unanswered. In reputable international media, correction is a regular practice. ‘Corrections and Clarifications’ are published daily in all of these. ‘Corrections and Clarifications’ are published daily in the UK’s ‘Guardian’, ‘Times’, America’s ‘New York Times’, ‘Wall Street Journal’.

The practice of the New York Times is particularly noteworthy. There, the responsibility for correction is given to a senior editor. In the initial stage, error reports are evaluated. If the report is found to be credible, it is sent to the relevant department. Once the error is confirmed, the first step is to correct the article online and put a clear note at the end of the article. Then, the correction is published in the print version of the newspaper, usually on the second page.

There is no such clear system in the media in Nepal. Where does the error report go? Who looks at it? Who decides? There are no answers to these questions. As if there were no errors in our media. However, factual errors are happening frequently—in all fields—politics, health, law, economy. However, there is no institutional mechanism for correction.

In responsible media around the world, ‘correction’ (correction), ‘clarification’ (explanation) and ‘apology’ (apology) are clearly distinguished. ‘Correction’ is done for minor factual errors. ‘Clarification’ is issued if there is no clarity on a complex issue. ‘Apology’ is published if there is a serious violation of journalistic ethics. In Nepal, there is a practice of keeping quiet as much as possible, even hiding news online, to avoid being found out. When readers know that the media hides mistakes, that is when the relationship of trust breaks down. However, many editors still have the misconception that ‘admitting mistakes reduces trust’. In reality, the opposite is true – openly admitting mistakes, explaining the reason for them, and correcting them increases trust. Readers want honesty.

Growing distance from readers

Another major reason for the decline in the influence of Nepali media is the distance from readers. The mainstream media still considers itself omniscient. The mentality of telling, not listening to, readers persists. When readers do not see their experiences, questions, and concerns in the media, they naturally look for alternative platforms.

At one time, ‘reader letters’ were published in print. That too has now been discontinued by many media outlets. Some are preserving the tradition of writing letters in the name of readers and tying up cats. Communication scholars Stone, Singletary, and Richmond (1993) have said, “The publication of something is only half the process of communication. The other half is completed when there is a response to it. That response comes from the target audience.”

Due to the lack of attention to interaction, the media and the journalists working in it have one world and the readers have another. The bridge between these two worlds has weakened. There are rarely any examples of the media directly communicating with the reader on a particular news or controversy, answering questions. Instead, columns like ‘Reader’s Questions, Editor’s Answers’ in old 

weekly newspapers used to humanize the media. They used to establish a direct dialogue with the editor. 

Today, readers are asking questions on the official social media pages of the media – why is this headline misleading? What is the source? Why this angle? However, those questions often remain unanswered. Those platforms without ‘moderation’ are full of ‘toxic’ comments, due to which journalists do not want to pay attention to them. But on the other hand, influencers sit around replying to comments. This is where dialogue and trust are built. This problem also lies in the institutional structure. In many Nepali media, there is no such position as a ‘readers’ editor’ or ‘public editor’. The job of such a person is to listen to reader complaints, investigate them, and improve the internal processes of the media. However, in Nepal, there is no one to listen to reader complaints or respond to them.

The rise of influencers: The media vacuum

Social media influencers are neither journalists, nor editors, nor trained media. They do not have the same investment as mainstream media. However, they have two things – directness and interaction. Their power is not born from their perfection, but from the failure of the media. If the media had given them space and had dialogue, their influence would not have been so great.

And, this problem is not limited to Nepal. The Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report shows that the monopoly of traditional news organizations is being broken in the era of social media and video platforms. Audiences are paying more attention to individual ‘content creators’ than to established news organizations or journalists. ‘Personalities’ are becoming more influential than ‘traditional media’ on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

This trend has made it easier for politicians and powerful people to escape the scrutiny of traditional journalism. They can now reach out directly to influential people who are friendly to them, who do not ask the difficult questions. This has raised serious questions about the role of institutional journalism.

But here is an irony – if mainstream media had allowed their journalists to develop as personalities, if they had given them the opportunity to communicate directly with their audience, this gap would not have been created. However, media organizations were afraid to let journalists become ‘brands’, because they feared that it would reduce the power of the organization. The result? Journalists also left the organization and created their own platforms.

Difficult to understand news

Another dimension of distance from the reader is presentation. Are the news understandable or not? According to the same report by ‘Reuters’, the tendency to stay away from news has reached a historic high. 40 percent of people worldwide sometimes or often stay away from news. The main reasons are negative affect and excessive news fatigue.

However, for young people under the age of 35, there is an additional problem – difficulty in understanding news. Complex language, unclear structure and presentation without context. This should force the media to rethink its style, but that debate is not visible in the Nepali media.

Another problem is the lack of context. News always focuses on the event of the day. But why is that event important, what happened before, what impact will it have in the future? These things are missed. As a result, the reader gets a list of separate events, but no story or continuity.

Favoritism

Nepali media still calls itself ‘independent’. However, any attentive reader of the last decade inevitably asks one question—whose side is this news on? The very raising of this question is a threat to the media. Because where such a question becomes common, there is a decline in trust in impartiality.

The fact that different national dailies present completely opposite angles on the same leader, even the facts, shows a clear ‘pattern’. The value of news is determined not by facts, but by the political leanings of the editor or publisher.

The media still considers the reader to be a crowd swayed by emotions. However, the reader now recognizes the ‘pattern’. Which media is whose critic? Which media is whose protector? When does it remain silent? When does it speak out? The reader sees everything. From here, the reader concludes—‘This is not news, it is an agenda.’ And, then he turns to alternative sources.

Skill development

Nepali mainstream media has a silent, but deadly disease—a mentality that considers journalists not tools, but consumables. It is said in speeches that journalism is a profession that requires skills, practice, and constant updates, but that idea has never reached implementation.

There is no such thing as 'in-house training' in most Nepali media. A new journalist comes in. Whatever he learns from outside is considered the final knowledge. After that, the same language, the same frame, the same headline, the same thinking are circulated for years. The world keeps changing, but the way of writing news remains the same as 20 years ago. If journalists learn it themselves, it is fine, otherwise the organization is not interested. Even if the organization does not teach, the product seeks the latest. This is not a lack of skill, but a lack of willpower.

It is not wrong for media companies to be profitable. However, not spending even a percent of the profit on developing the skills of journalists is like a crime. Crores are spent on flashy studios, branding, stages, and photo sessions. However, the excuse that 'there is no budget' is prepared to teach journalists new tools, new methods, and new thinking. For media owners, journalists are not a source of knowledge, but a line item to reduce costs.

Data journalism, visual storytelling, fact checking, interactive graphics – all these are essential skills of modern journalism. However, the number of journalists with these skills in Nepali media can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The reason is simple – no one taught them, no one encouraged them to learn.

When skills are not developed, content becomes weak. Weak content does not raise questions. Content that does not raise questions does not test power. Media that does not test power becomes the loudspeaker of power and capital. And the same media says – ‘Readers have abandoned us.’

This is why ‘content creators’ outside the media have come forward. They have come forward not because they are more knowledgeable than journalists, but because they have made the investment that the media should have made. Understanding algorithms, speaking to the audience, being able to tell a story visually: these skills are not the enemy of journalism, but the Nepali media has never wanted to make them their own. Media that does not invest in the development of journalists’ skills is investing in its own demise, not in journalism.

The failure of digital transition

Technology was changing, readers were moving to digital platforms. Nepali media understood this. However, their response was superficial. Putting print content online, repurposing the same old format on a new platform – this was not a digital transition, it was just a change of medium.

Digital journalism means incorporating multimedia storytelling, interactive graphics, direct dialogue with the audience, data analysis and personal experience. However, Nepali media did not adopt any of these seriously. As a result, their digital presence remained only formal, not effective.

Young audiences are looking for short, visual and interactive content on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. However, mainstream media is still producing long text-based content. This is not wrong, but it is not enough. Media should be able to produce content in diverse formats – different platforms, different audiences and different styles.

A ray of hope

The reason for the loss of power of mainstream Nepali media is not outside, but inside. Losing trust, distancing yourself from your readers, not admitting your mistakes, and taking sides – these are all suicidal decisions. Technology is not to blame, nor are the new generation. They have simply filled the void. If mainstream media wants to regain influence, it must first introspect. Trust must be rebuilt. It must communicate with its readers. It must learn to apologize for mistakes.

Young journalists are coming with new ideas and energy. They understand digital tools, want to communicate with their audiences, and are ready to challenge traditional patterns. If institutions can give them the opportunity and freedom, change is possible.

Because, as the Reuters Institute report shows, people still look for trusted brands in times of doubt. When it comes to verifying any questionable information online, readers still value established institutions.