IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
IN 1851 Nepal acquired its first printing press. Today it has some 4,302 news portals competing for a $150m advertising market, and the truth has become an endangered species. When Ncell, a telecommunications giant, was embroiled in a $500m tax-evasion scandal in 2017, swathes of Nepal’s press stayed silent. The reason was nakedly commercial: journalists feared losing advertising revenue. It was a surrender as complete as any military defeat, and far more corrosive.
Nepal’s media is collapsing under the weight of its own business model. The shift from print to digital has fragmented audiences and eviscerated revenues. Newsrooms that once maintained investigative desks now scrape by. Journalists wait months for wages. Many have left the profession entirely; the Federation of Nepali Journalists shrank from 14,000 members to 9,000 between 2023 and 2024. Those who remain face a choice: chase clicks or starve. They are choosing clicks. The consequences for Nepal’s young democracy are dire.
The economics are brutal. With advertising stretched to the limit, no outlet can afford the luxury of angering corporate paymasters. Banks and telecoms firms have perfected the art of “preventative advertising”: buying space not to promote products but to ensure awkward stories never see print. When a Ford dealer in Kathmandu was accused of tax evasion in 2018, four major outlets suddenly discovered their investigative zeal—but only after the dealer had excluded them from advertising contracts. That was journalism only in name; in reality it was revenge posing as public service.
The result is a media ecosystem where corporate interests dictate coverage. A land-purchase scandal involving the state oil corporation saw news outlets split along commercial rather than factual lines, each backing the faction that buttered its bread. Meanwhile, a complex offshore deal involving Ncell was covered up rather than investigated, with state agencies and some media acting as accomplices rather than watchdogs. The fourth estate has become a fifth column.
What fills the void left by serious journalism is worse than silence: it is noise. Of 49,000 news stories analysed in a recent study, 3.7% were actively misleading: a figure that understates the rot. Over 70% of misleading content comes from “inappropriate sources”: stories misattribute quotes, fail to cite original agencies or just copy-paste without verification. This is karaoke and not journalism, endlessly repeating whatever tune the algorithm requests.
The incentive structure is perverse. Social media platforms—Facebook commands an 87% market share in Nepal—reward outrage over accuracy. Algorithms don’t care whether a story is true: they care whether it is shared. The result is a race to the bottom. Even respected journalists now launch YouTube channels and TikTok accounts, hawking their credibility for ad revenue. A minor dispute becomes a national scandal. A baseless rumour becomes breaking news. Facts compete with feelings and feelings usually win.
Consider Routine of Nepal Banda, a social-media news page that distils complex events into three-line summaries written in romanised Nepali. For a generation raised on 30-second videos, it is catnip. During Kathmandu’s 2022 mayoral election, the page mobilised voters for one candidate, flouting election rules with impunity. It also failed to disclose that it had financial ties to a gaming company it covered. This is propaganda with a youthful gloss.
Legacy outlets fare a little better. The Kathmandu Post and other traditional papers maintain editorial standards, but even they bend to platform logic. The gatekeeping role that once separated news from noise has weakened. Clickbait headlines proliferate and context vanishes. Policy debates are reduced to bite-sized snippets that inform nobody and enrage everybody. When 80% of internet users encounter misinformation regularly, trust collapses. Surveys show media credibility has declined progressively since 2017: only 58% of Nepalis now trust news outlets at all.
The human toll is appalling. Understaffed newsrooms churn out unverified content because there is no alternative. Journalists lack training in digital verification techniques. Press releases from corporations are published verbatim as news. Women flee the profession due to harassment and lack of maternity benefits; 29 left in a single year. That exodus of talent ensures the spiral continues: fewer skilled journalists means worse journalism, which means less revenue, which means fewer journalists. It is a doom loop.
Nepal’s government, rather than fix the problem, threatens to make it worse. A proposed Media Council Bill would hand appointment powers to the Ministry of Communications, effectively neutering regulatory independence. It criminalises ethical lapses with fines of up to $7,500—ruinous for cash-strapped outlets. Most ominously, it grants the government power to issue directives that media must follow. This is censorship by bureaucracy, Rana-era repression in digital garb.
A parallel Social Media Bill demands platforms register with authorities and grants sweeping content-removal powers without due process. It bans anonymous profiles, imperilling investigative journalists who rely on source protection. Together these laws would transform Nepal’s media from a watchdog into a lapdog.
The stakes could not be higher. When the government banned social media last September, protesters coordinated via Discord servers, selecting leaders in real time. It was democracy’s immune response to authoritarianism. But misinformation ran riot during those protests: false claims about hotels owned by politicians’ children led to arson. Social media can bypass gatekeepers but it cannot replace them. Without verification, mobilisation becomes mob rule.
Nepal’s media crisis is not unique, but its democracy is particularly vulnerable. A country that emerged from civil war in 2006 and monarchy in 2008 desperately needs institutions that hold power to account. Rather it has a press captured by corporations and threatened by the state, producing content designed to enrage rather than inform. When journalism becomes indistinguishable from entertainment, democracy becomes indistinguishable from spectacle.
What is to be done? Money is the starting point. Nepal must break its addiction to corporate advertising through reader subscriptions, public-interest grants and transparent state subsidies distributed by merit rather than favouritism. Journalists need training in digital verification and protection from wage theft and harassment. Media literacy must enter school curricula so citizens can distinguish news from noise.
Most urgently, Nepal must reject laws that trade press freedom for state control. The Media Council Bill should be scrapped or rewritten to guarantee independence. The Social Media Bill should be withdrawn. Regulation should protect journalism and not police it.
In 1851 Nepal’s first press printed government gazettes. Nearly two centuries later, its thousands of portals mainly print garbage. The technology has changed but the challenge has not. Democracy needs an informed citizenry, and an informed citizenry needs a press that values truth over traffic. Nepal’s media must choose whether it serves the public or the algorithm. Its democracy depends on getting the answer right. ■
Correction (Jan 30th 2026): An earlier version of this piece incorrectly said 1.5% of news stories were actively misleading. In fact it is 3.7%. Sorry.
