Challenge to free press can't be countenanced: Justice Nagarathna

The Justice said, a press sustained by its readers is always better placed to serve the public interest and fend off political pressures.

New Delhi: A Supreme Court judge, Justice B V Nagarathna has said, a challenge to free press cannot be countenanced but must be effectively tackled at the earliest and a restraint on free and frank reporting and an emergence of “selective journalism” must be curbed.

"If press freedom depends on economic viability within competitive markets, can it truly be free? Will there then be a free and balanced press? The press may be free from the State yet dependent on corporate power which may in turn be dependent on State patronage,'' she said.

Justice Nagarathna highlighted these are the issues that the media must again begin seriously discussing because they challenge many historically held assumptions and risk disruption.

In her address at IPI India award for excellence in journalism 2025 at the Constitution Club here on February 27, 2026, she said, a press sustained by its readers is always better placed to serve the public interest and fend off political pressures.

"Good journalism doesn’t run on goodwill alone. When someone takes a subscription, they’re really saying, this kind of reporting is worth backing,'' the judge said, stressing that the civil society must recognise that independent reporting is a public good worth paying for.

She said, sustained, ground-level reporting does not endure by itself; it survives only when people choose to value it.

"Some stories cannot be told from a distance. They demand ground reporting - from forests and coastlines, from rivers, farms, cities, and communities living with tumultuous change every day. Such reporting performs an essential public function. It connects law with lived reality and policy with consequence,'' the judge said.

She also emphasised that freedom of the press is not only a constitutional right, it is also an ethical practice. Central to the moral authority of journalists are the twin ideals of objectivity and impartiality.

Justice Nagarathna pointed out a press outlet may be legally free to criticize the government, yet economically constrained in ways that make such criticism costly or unsustainable.

"A free press is not created by decree; it evolves through interaction between readers, writers, and editors. Attempts to perfect it through centralized control, whether political or bureaucratic undermines the very spontaneity that gives it vitality. The recent trend of attempts to capture the press not only has economic underpinnings but also political overtones,'' she said.

The judge felt, media outlets may remain editorially independent on paper, yet their capacity to pursue adversarial journalism is limited by the interests of owners whose economic or political ties may be threatened by such reporting.

The Award for Excellence in Journalism was conferred on Vaishnavi Rathore, a reporter with Scroll.in by a jury headed by former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Madan B Lokur for her incisive ground report about the Great Nicobar Island Development Project.