Media coverage of Mumbai Terror Attacks

What a biffing our eyes have received during the recent Mumbai terror attacks. A nation glued to the idiot box like never, watched in horror and disbelief the terror drama unfold in Mumbai.
The media coverage of the attacks broke all the barriers of sensible journalism. The terrorists may not have been able to bring down the Taj Mahal, Oberoi Trident, Café Leopold and Nariman Point, but they have been successful in achieving their main objective, which was making the nation feel the tremors of what happened in Mumbai through media. Media especially television gave wide coverage as if they were watching a cricket test match. Terrorist were provided a running commentary of what commandoes and police were doing. Even if terrorists had no access to television, their masterminds surely had. Who were regularly on phone with them. Media called the events in Mumbai as a war, but the way it was covered it had no element of war journalism.
In a war, the armed forces take every care that their adversary is not aware of the strength of the opposing forces but the anchors of television channels were constantly breaking news about the reinforcements and their details and the images of people locked up in their rooms surely gave the terrorists concrete targets to go after. The disclosure of the death of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, encounter specialist Viajy Salaskar and many others surely boosted the morale of terrorists.
Most of the television channels have been around for less than five years. For some the Mumbai terror seize was the first major event that have covered live and they rushed to provide live non stop coverage. In the way amplifying the general hysteria and panic.
It has been impossible to ignore the countless times news channels claimed to be the first to report a certain incident in the 60 hours long terror seize. It is almost sickening, before the incident is reported; they remind us that they are the first to report the incident. Is that really the most important side of a developing crisis?
For more than 60 hours of Mumbai seize, resilience was another word that annoyed the pundits of news channels and their patrons this time. What resilience, enough is enough, said Pronoy Roy’s channel on the left side of channel spectrum. Same sentiments were echoed by Times Now. Similarly CNN IBN was also not left behind in the game of upmanship over TRPs. They all attacked resilience this time. They wanted firm action from the government in tackling terrorism.
The same channels celebrated resilience when bombs went off in trains and in market killings. The resilience of the ordinary man suited the rich business class of Mumbai since work, manufacturing and even film shooting did not stop. When it came to them, the rich shamelessly exhibited their lack of nerves and refused to be resilient themselves.
Media also declared the attacks as 9/11 of India, even a CIA official on CNN called it the same. Yes, indeed it was 9/11 of India, but what CNN did when 9/11 happened. They did not try to show the exclusive rescue action and they did not invade ground zero. But India’s television channels surely seemed to do one thing that CNN did during 9/11. They did not take commercial breaks for a day.
Advertisements were not shown because viewers could switch to other channels in the meantime. All the news channels wanted the highest TRPs in troubled times so that they later can demand higher rates for advertisements and stay up on charts.
Worst was the conduct of so called celebrity reporters, who wanted their cameraman to zoom on everything as they lay on ground. A star reporter cum anchor spoke lying on the ground to create the impact that he was reporting from war zone.
The most maligned journalist has been Barkha Dutt, the anchor cum reporter of New Delhi television. The Facebook group, "Barkha Dutt for worst journalist in the world," has attracted nearly 1,600 members since its creation following the attacks. The group accuses her of being melodramatic, arrogant, and insensitive to relatives of victims.
The implicit assumption that information should be available universally and in real time is interesting. The right to be informed is not the same thing as the right to be a spectator. Nature of 24X7 television has made us transit from wanting to know to wanting to see. Information on TV has been recast in present continuous tense. The trouble is that we now construe our fundamental right to know as right to see.
Terrorism in its present form is a post media phenomenon. For terror to be produced from symbolic acts of violence, information must be conveyed to millions of people as quickly as possible. Media has become terrorism’s new best friend.
The recent Mumbai seize underlines that media is fast becoming a crucial part of terrorists’ calculations. Media needs to restrain itself from sensational journalism and must rise on the occasion. The rating driven nature f today’s media leaves less chances for an introspection and way towards sensible and efficient journalism.