Punjabi news is now consumed mainly on phones. The Punjabi dailies have digital editions, Punjabi television news channels are numerous, and a large informal ecosystem of YouTube channels and social media pages operates alongside them.
The informal channels are fast, poorly sourced, and often run by one person with a phone. They reach very large audiences in the villages and in the diaspora simultaneously, and they carry a substantial amount of material that would not survive editing.
The diaspora is a major part of the audience and in some cases the funding, which means Punjab's public argument is now conducted partly by and for people who do not live in it.
The formal Punjabi press is under the same commercial pressure as newspapers everywhere and has been shedding reporters.
A state with serious unresolved questions about water, land, debt and accountability has fewer working investigative reporters in Punjabi than it had thirty years ago, and more people producing content than ever.
Rural Punjab reads Punjabi dailies and watches Punjabi television, and the urban middle class reads English and Hindi. The two audiences are told different things about the same events.
The fastest growth is in Punjabi language video on social platforms, which has no editorial structure of any kind and is where most political argument now happens.
The diaspora media is part of the same system. A story breaking in Punjab is being argued about in Surrey the same evening, in Punjabi, on the same platforms.