Taj on fire

It is the time to say thank you to all those who risked their lives to help those in distress during the recent seige of south Mumbai – the brave soldiers, the policemen, the fire brigade, the announcer at CST station who warned people about the attack and all those who helped the dead and the injured. Also to those who brought us all the news and kept us informed on a 24X7 basis. It was heartening to see the Times of India has matured and willing to pay a public tribute to its gutsy photographers –Sebastian D’souza who got the best photographs of the terrorists, Hoshi Jal, their Photo Editor who leads from the front, Santosh Bane, Sriram Vernekar and others. In the past the paper didn’t think it worth reporting when they were badly assaulted in the line of duty!

After the kudos have been sincerely handed out, let us introspect about various aspects of the coverage. For instance, there are serious issues about whether it compromised the security of our commandos, especially when we know, in retrospect, that they were sent to counter the terrorists without so much as a briefing on the layout of the Taj Mahal hotel.
Many of these issues have already been discussed on the Net and in the media, so I will not add my personal rant to the noise. Instead, here are a couple of sharp but significant views on the media coverage sent to me by two friends.

Here is something sent by my friend George Thomas. As a member of the fraternity, I offer it without comment.

Ten problems with the 24-hour TV news reporting.

1) Speculative, not fact-based. The numbers of gunmen entering Bombay dropped from 20-25 to 10 across three days and from 5-7 at Taj to 4; 7-10 at Oberoi/Trident to 2. This causes needless panic; many of us still think there are gunmen out there. Ditto vis-à-vis boat routes to enter Bombay (one day Badhwar Park, next day Gateway of India). Don’t report what is just said and can’t be verified - or at least question statements from politicians!
Otherwise, it’s like reporting rumour: which is what happened Friday afternoon when channels reported non-existent gunfire at several places.

2) Unquestioning. How many gunmen were there? How many people actually died? How many boats came into Mumbai? How did the Wadi Bandar and Vile Parle blasts take place? How could 2 gunmen hold up a 350-plus-room twin hotel like the Trident/Oberoi?
These are just the most basic - questions off the top of my head. Never heard any of them asked. I’m not even going into the lack of questions around ‘Pak’ involvement.

3) Class-biased. Where was VT on our TV screens, even though that was attacked at the same time as the two hotels/Chabad House - and which 40-lakh Bombayites use? After the first night, VT station and all the hospitals where the injured were taken — Cama, JJ, St George, Bombay — were taken off our radar (even though they are all in south Bombay, minutes from where the media was gathered in full force).

4) Opinionated, not fact-based. What does ‘Pakistani involvement’ mean? No distinction between Pakistani elements and the Pakistani state: particularly given the complex political situation in Pakistan; I have yet to hear one anchor or reporter ask the question: what’s the proof? (In a hypothetical case, if a cell phone with calls to India were found somewhere else in the world, does it indicate that ‘India was involved’?)

5) Simplistic. The coverage became a parable of good vs. evil; ‘bravehearts vs. cowards’ ‘unsung heroes vs. villains’, which has now swung to ‘Pakistan vs. India’.

6) Stupid. What exactly are victims of gunmen supposed to say when asked how they feel? ‘Did you feel scared’? (No, I felt elated after spending 10 hours hearing bombs explode around me!!!) Many such stupid questions including those asked to Ratan Tata on Thursday evening.

7) Invasive. The NDTV interview with Sabina Sehgal Saikia’s husband when all the facts pointed to her probable death is a case in point.

Dangerous. Giving away the locations of those stuck or hidden in rooms/halls at the two hotels. Ditto with jingoism masquerading as patriotism/nationalism in the ‘Pakistan’ vs. ‘India’ tenor of reporting.

9) Loaded. Constant use of emotionally-loaded terms: ‘terrorists’ not ‘Gunmen’, ‘dastardly’, ‘heinous’, ‘cowardly deeds’ et al. A major malapropist is Arnab Goswami.

10) Theatrical. There was enough drama there; we didn’t need faux drama on top of that. Barkha Dutt’s coverage of the ground floor of the Taj is a case in point. “Shattered glass!! Shattered glass!!” she hyperventilated in a broken voice. What did she expect to find? A rare orchid?

The one below was sent by Udit Chaudhuri (http://micropower.blogspot.com)

1. I will go back to my elocution teacher at school to learn to pause for commas and full stops in my sentences.

2. I shall not deliberately stammer or repeat two words of a given sentence 4 times to avoid half a second pause.

3. I shall try and speak correct language while keeping up with “constant sound byte syndrome”—keeping in mind grammar, pronunciations and elegance of the language that I deliver the show in.

4. I shall not invite 3-4 panellist and repeatedly cut them short, not allow them to finish a sentence, telling each one that the show is running out of time, while hogging all the airtime myself, talking incoherently and deliberately repeating everything 5-8 times lest there is a much needed pause lurking somewhere around the corner or a panellist may just say something sane.

5. I shall not make national news of a friend’s death or achievements. A fellow journalist’s death will receive as much airtime as a CEO or a foreign tourist’s death. The others wonder if their dear ones life was any less important.

6. I shall always remember I am a journalist, a generalist—not a scientist, not a marine biologist, not an architect, not a cook, not a defence personal, not a Olympian, not a poor taxi driver, not a hawaldar, not a doctor, not a fire fighter. I will endeavour to learn what it might be to be one of them, by giving them time to speak when I invite them over.

7. I will watch peers on other channels, abroad and at home to understand that pausing to think is completely acceptable, and far more acceptable is to make sense. Viewers actually like it.

8. I will keep my drawing room conversations out of the newsroom and not decide on my own who are the 10 people that will have the right to represent a city. Doesn’t matter if they all happen to be my buddies.

9. I will not put words into others mouth, especially those who find it difficult to articulate on live television.

10. I shall take a sabbatical and research a subject of interest, say national security to its depth.Unfair? Partly true? What do you think?

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