Open channel
I really wanted Aftermath to be the last time I referred to what is stupidly being called 26/11 (as if the next three days didn’t happen) but it’s clearly not to be. We don’t know who orchestrated the events in Mumbai or why but one thing is for sure: what this latest terror attack has exposed is our woeful ineptitude. Whether it’s our security forces or our politicians or the media, India appears to be populated by buffoons. As further proof of this, yesterday a parliamentary panel suggested “statutory regulations” were needed to curb the irresponsible behaviour of the news media “in the larger interest of the society”. It seems we have a committee of petitions and they tabled the report in the Rajya Sabha (our House of Lords). Politicians like Sitaram Yechury and Sharad Yadav lambasted the television coverage of the recent terror attacks in Mumbai. These channels were not presenting ‘breaking news’, said Yechury, but they were “breaking the unity of the country”.
While there’s no arguing that the television channels’ reportage ranged from idiotic to sensationally idiotic, I’m aghast that the reaction of grown adults is so similar to that of a kid who’s been tripped over in the playground - instead of getting ourselves a band-aid, let’s complain to the principal. So instead of giving the media a chance to discipline itself, we have Vishal Dadlani lodging his PIL, expecting the Supreme Court to rap the knuckles of the news channels, and now this parliamentary committee wants to impose “regulations” upon the media. And it seems this stuff has public support, which goes to show how frail public memory is. No one seems to appreciate the fact that there were no guidelines for the reporters, none of whom had ever seen a situation like this before. Or that we all watched the channels that brought us closest to the action, even when we knew that the reporter and cameraperson were being irresponsible. Where, for example, were the government briefings to keep the public abreast of what was happening? The most disgusting aspect of the media coverage was the driving need of television reporters or anchors, like Barkha Dutt and Arnab Goswami, to make themselves the heroes of the pieces and that is something that can’t be regulated. What regulations would ensure is how much information reaches you. At about 10pm on 26 November, there was a rumour that the Taj and the Trident hadn’t been attacked; the gunfire was the result of a Nigerian drug bust. In a world with regulated media content, the story of the Nigerian drug bust could have continued for hours, obscuring the actual course of events because it made our police and Rapid Action Force look singularly hapless and inept. Instead of sms-ing for information, most of us turned on the television and internet and didn’t switch off till 29 November. Because we could trust the media to show and tell us what was happening in Colaba and Nariman Point.
We’ve got so used to the idea of a hundred television channels offering us breaking news and magazines serving up exposes of corrupt public figures that we seem to have forgotten the years when the electronic media was a state-run enterprise. When Sherlock Holmes was our idea of a ‘new’ show. When news, edited and approved by bureaucrats, was read out stiltedly by elegant ladies with lacquered hair and men in suits with velvety baritones. When it took eight hours for the news of the Prime Minister’s assasination to reach the nation, even though the rest of the world knew she was dead. Indira Gandhi died at approximately 9.30 in the morning on 31 October 1984. By 3 in the afternoon, the BBC had said she was dead even though there was no official confirmation from the Indian government. All India Radio and Doordarshan continued with normal programming until those in the New Delhi media headquarters were given confirmations of security forces being in place to prevent any possible outbreak of violence. The state media announced Gandhi’s death at about 6 in the evening. Is this what we’d like to return to?
on Saturday, December 13th, 2008, 11:24 am in Current affairs, Terror! › 
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I could go a very long time without hearing another word from the Thackerays. Bring back four channels of Boredarshan.
Oh the irony.
I don’t believe they held back the news to prevent possible violence. I can just as easily believe they held back the news to give time to the Congress Party apparatchicks to organise the genocidal violence against Sikhs.
Me neither. And this time they want to control the media so it doesn’t show the politicians and the government goofing up, not for whatever security-related rationale they might be offering. It would be really ironic if the Indian media became subject to a Government-imposed ‘code of conduct’, something the Pakistani media has managed to resist. That’s not an argument for the media to behave irresponsibly; it is an argument for greater self-regulation, ongoing self-criticism and introspection; and for individual channels, to create and publicize their own codes of ethics. The nature of media is such that, in spite of everything, some mistakes will inevitably be made. These will just have to be lived with, contained, mitigated, and learned from.
A rationale for having ‘just 3 or 4′ news channels also gets made - after all, CBS-NBC-ABC-CNN were all there were for a long time in the US, and even now, that’s largely true. But I say if India can have 70 24-hour news channels, more power to them. If the number of channels in existence drives down quality, let the market speak.
No. But before the media gets completely out of hand, there need to be set some controls that ensure that TRPs dont get more importance than national interest. It is fine if we dont get to know the exact details of the incident for a few hours, as long as that ensures that the crisis gets resolved sooner.
On one hand, we have media abusing their power. On the other hand, there are the politicians who have been doing that for, well, forever.
What we need is a balance that ensures that the media has powers that let them report wrongdoings, but not go overboard with their investigations like they have started getting into. Case in point, the recent Arushi murder case, where the media went completely crazy, and ended up making investigation harder for the already inept police by actually damaging evidence.
I think the news media will co-operate with authorities if there is a single office in charge of censoring national security issues. This office needs to be proactive and be very clear about what the media should not be reporting. No media organization will risk the lives of the country’s security personnel for a few more eyeballs (I hope).
As soon as the government starts instituting a single office in charge of censoring ‘issues’ it will be abused. I wouldn’t trust the government and politicians of India to exercise the remit of ‘censorship’. As soon as they have that power it will be abused to conflate political expediency with ‘national security’. A free media is essential in any dmeocracy. In a country prone to politician fomented and abetted violence against minorities, incompetence in the protection against terrorists, you want to give self serving politicians command over the media?
About the Indira Gandhi thing on DD… the BBC did the same exact thing when Princess Diana died in Paris. Every other news organization reported her death but the Beeb held off until the official confirmation from the Royal family and the UK govt.
The regulation probably would not happen anyway - I trust our legislators to be lazy and divided enough. The Indira era censorship was forced down from the very top. No politician in sight wields that kind of power anymore. With dozen MP regional political parties often holding the keys to power, the central govt itself is in no position today to force such things down the throats of the states. But all the talk about regulation could be, I think, good for it might force the news channels to self-regulate. The threats of regulation are, in this case, a part of trying to find the right balance. And no, we can’t let market inefficiencies wreak havoc in matters of national security.
In the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s death, Doordarshan broadcast on loop and repeat open calls for ‘punishment’ to be meted out to Sikhs, including crowds chanting ‘khoon ka badla khoon’. This was being broadcast as Sikhs were being murdered by the thousand. Comparing it to the death of Princess Diana is ridiculous, as if one was a responsible news service at the time.
India has a history of its governments being involved in, or being complicit with, religious pogrom and killings. And yet people want restrictions placed on a free media, the same free media that whatever errors it makes, will be the one thing that will be able to bring about an investigation of corruption and communalist action by politicians? No way. It’s like a cockroach asking for a spotlight to be taken off it.
The most horrific thing about 1984 was that the state controlled media never let the public know the extent of state sponsored targeted killing of minority Sikh community. It took a long time before people all over India learned that the Congress sponsored thugs had killed close to 3000 innocent people in political vendetta.