Sensational, Titillating, Factual

Reporting crimes against women is often designed to titillate rather than to

- Ashlin Mathew

HEADLINES such as “2G Queenpin: Radia’s Secret Role in Spectrum Loot” from India Today, “Did Rhea Drive Sushant to Suicide with Black Magic?” aired on Aaj Tak and “Rhea Chakraborty—The Femme Fatale Behind Sushant’s Demise?” published by Hindustan Times scarcely resemble newspaper reports. They could easily have appeared in lurid magazines trading in sex, scandal and sensation. Yet, all of them were published by mainstream media organisations.

The same pattern is visible in headlines such as “Indrani’s Jail Diary: Botox, Affairs, and Daughter's, Ghost” from NDTV, “Mommy Dearest Strangled Daughter in Car for Stepson Lover!” in The Times of India, or “Mini-Skirt Sadhvi: Radhe Maa's Bedroom Darshan Scandal!” aired by Times Now. Sexualisation, moral judgement and voyeurism dominate these narratives, displacing evidence-based reporting.

Journalist and editor Kalpana Sharma argues that contemporary reporting is not accidental but the result of a commercialised media economy. Since the 1990s, she notes, news has increasingly functioned as a market product, where what sold mattered more than what informed. In this shift, women's bodies became a key selling point, and sensational crime gained prominence because it attracted voyeuristic condemn, serving as an additional means of boosting viewership and TRPs interest, particularly in urban markets.

Sharma observes that crime reporting began to be “elaborated with illustrations and dramatic detail... television channels further intensified this trend. Stories were chosen based on TRPs, not news value.” Verification weakened and journalism increasingly gave way to performance. Sensationalism existed earlier, she acknowledges, but its scale and function changed.