OPINION | The political spokesperson is dead. Long live the communicator

The traditional party spokesperson, long a staple of the evening news debate, is facing a period of profound evolution.

Let us begin with a small, uncomfortable test. Close your eyes and try to recall a single sparkling factoid delivered by an official spokesperson of any party on English television this year. One quip that travelled, one sentence that became a meme, one moment that lingered in public memory.

Struggling? That difficulty itself is revealing.

Now perform the same exercise for theatrics. Within seconds, one is reminded of the faces that let retorts flicker past. This contrast, while not absolute, highlights an important shift: the traditional party spokesperson, long a staple of the evening news debate, is facing a period of profound evolution. The role is not disappearing, but it is being contorted by changing viewer habits and emerging platforms. Ironically, in an information-hungry age, there is a near-erasure of an important aspect of their job description — being great explainers.

Demography is destiny

The primary catalyst for this change is demographics, which are driving a dramatic transformation in how Indians consume political content. Television viewership has declined sharply, even in rural areas. TV as a main source of news fell from 33 percent in 2021 to 25 percent in 2024.

The humble smartphone, armed with cheap data, has demolished the prime-time monopoly. Families no longer gather around Doordarshan or NDTV for their daily dose of politics. They open YouTube at their own convenience and let the algorithm curate rage, laughter or nostalgia in sixty-second bursts. This T20-like phenomenon sits comfortably alongside the Test-match equivalent — long-form podcasts, where ideas are dissected threadbare in a relaxed manner.

Technology eats culture

The second earthquake is technological. Legacy news channels, despite knowing that intense studio confrontations led by seasoned anchors no longer command the same undivided attention they once did, refuse to change. The erstwhile national oracles are found wanting against small-time creators who notch up fifty million views before breakfast.

The mainstream news business has been slowly reduced to high-brow entertainment over the past two decades. Perhaps that is why some star anchors are now experimenting with the podcast format. Yet very few are attempting to reinvent the TV panel discussion to genuinely pursue truth with informed guests.

The party cannot go on

The third shift is internal to the two large political parties. For a decade, the BJP has been the most sophisticated political machine India has seen in the distributed media age. It mastered Facebook in 2014, WhatsApp in 2019, Instagram Reels in 2024, and Telegram channels in between. Yet when the cameras switch to English-language studios, the party appears not to have evolved in a decade. Many spokespersons seem to have been chosen for their background or symbolic value rather than communicative skill.

Compounding the problem is a sweet irony — the Modi factor. The Prime Minister is not merely the party’s biggest vote-getter; he is its sharpest copywriter. When he coins a phrase, it travels farther and faster than any spokesperson’s career highlights. The bar is simply too high. Spokespersons, operating in his shadow, often opt for caution, sticking closely to approved messaging rather than venturing into fresh territory. Creativity atrophies, wit vanishes, and the viewer switches channels.

For the Congress, the spokesperson problem is part of a larger party-wide malaise. It often refuses to engage in realpolitik grounded in pressing issues and facts, instead dealing in conjecture and rumours. The spark that turns offence into persuasion is missing. Repeated electoral defeats appear to have had little impact on internal processes. The consequence is devastating: their talking heads arrive without a personal following and leave without creating one.

In with the new

Elsewhere, a richer ecosystem has filled the vacuum. A constellation of independent commentators now dominates serious political conversation. Armed with historical context, data visualisation and an easy familiarity with their audience, they consistently outclass official voices in preparation and presentation.

The BJP’s own IT department produces sharp short videos that rack up lakhs of views, yet the Media Department continues to deploy the same faces in losing battles on dying channels. The left hand, brilliant and ruthless, refuses to speak to the right. Perhaps it is time to merge the departments and look for synergies.

Some regional opposition parties have grasped one half of the new reality: memorable spokespersons still matter, provided they are allowed to be memorable. The BJP, paradoxically, has grasped the other half — that distributed digital networks are decisive — but refuses to merge the two insights.

Quo vadis — what does the future demand?

The continuing relevance of Big Media now hinges largely on the fact that leaders and top decision-makers from an older generation still value what is broadcast, not necessarily for its reach but for its signalling power. English news channels, already catering to a small segment of the population, must rediscover themselves not merely for economic survival, but for legitimacy as fair arbiters of “truth”.

Gen Z is now in comment threads and community notes, on Discord servers (as seen in Nepal), and in private Signal groups — waiting for voices that speak to them rather than at them.

Modern political communication demands an entirely new archetype: the twenty-something communicator who can dismantle a manifesto on a podcast at noon, roast a rival on X by sunset, and still hold a two-hour Instagram Live without reading from a script. Someone fluent in Hinglish, alert to deepfakes, and comfortable treating the party line as raw material rather than holy scripture. Someone who makes it seem as though they do not defend the party, but make the party worth defending.

The raw talent already exists. Walk through any decent college campus or scroll through the comments under a viral political thread and you will find young women and men arguing with clarity, humour and factual command. The question is whether parties — particularly the BJP, given its historic agility — have the imagination to promote them.

Epilogue

The old spokesperson — angry, rehearsed, tethered to a dying medium — is fading into caricature. The new communicator — curious, quick, unafraid to laugh at their own side when it deserves it — is already here. What remains to be seen is how the BJP’s new young national president, Nitin Nabin, approaches this challenge.

Parties that recognise the difference will shape India’s political imagination for the next decade. Parties that do not will keep wondering why the youth no longer listen, even as the youth remake the country in real time.

The screen has changed. The script must follow. 

(Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.)