Media complicity in Mumbai terror

The visual media and terrorism have a mutually reinforcing relationship, which
needs to be broken to the detriment of the latter, says SUNIL ADAM

Posted Tuesday, Dec 09 12:50:05, 2008

The terror strategists who orchestrated the diabolical attacks in Mumbai have
apparently decided that global audiences have become inured to images of suicide
missions triggering spectacular explosions and mass killings.

Their altered tactic -- to stage a protracted carnage at high-value venues that

guarantee greater number of victims and help create a psychological state of
siege disproportionate to the actual scale of the violence -- has paid off
handsomely.

By injecting a “human” element into the violence – allowing victims to

have “face-time” with the perpetrators, and, vicariously, with millions of
television viewers, the strategists have managed to amplify the coldblooded
nature of their mission. In contrast, as Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation
said recently citing intelligence reports, the Jihadist terrorists have come to
regard the remote triggering of IEDs and suicide bombings as too impersonal and
not “manly” enough.

But what ensured the stupendous success of the Mumbai terrorists was the
saturated coverage by international television networks, fueled by a weak news
cycle over the Thanksgiving weekend in America. It was “propaganda by deed”
at its best, considering that the actual organization behind the attacks
didn’t bother to claim credit or make demands or issue a communiqué.

The success of this strategy is likely to motivate terrorists to stage similar

attacks, possibly in Europe, if not in the United States. It will not be
farfetched to imagine suicide attackers targeting, say, different venues of the
Cannes Film Festival, killing dozens of international celebrities and stars -- a
feat that would assure them unprecedented media attention.

Curiously, while media coverage has always been central to terrorists’

strategy, it has never been factored into counterterrorism policies of targeted
governments. Unlike conventional violence, which involves a perpetrator and a
victim, terrorism is a triadic tactic involving a perpetrator, a victim and an
audience. In other words, a terrorist needs targets as well as objects of
violence. The former has no value without the latter.

For instance, without underestimating the trauma caused by the terrorist

attacks on 9/11, it is plausible to assume that the impact would have been very
different had the TV networks not endlessly broadcast the images of the planes
crashing into the Twin Towers. Because there were no images of the downing of
United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and no dramatic footage of the plane crashing
into the Pentagon building, they are not etched in popular memory the same way
as the attacks and collapse of the Twin Towers are.
It is pertinent here to note that the media coverage of terrorism also has a
bearing on the response of the governments. In his seminal work, “Mini Manual
of the Urban Guerrilla,” Brazilian terrorist and thinker Carlos Marighella
says the whole idea of staging spectacular attacks is to make the target
government “overreact.”

The greater the media coverage, the greater the pressure on the government to
demonstrate that it is in control, which invariably results in excessive
measures that cause inconvenience to and harassment of ordinary citizens. Worse
still, overreaction transforms a political situation into a military situation,
as Marighella envisages.

That is precisely what the Indian government needs to resist as it contemplates

its responses to the Mumbai terror outrage and that is what the Bush
administration did not factor in when it declared “war” against the
perpetrators of 9/11 attacks. If anything, President Bush compounded the
situation by waging a war against Iraq in the mistaken assumption that a
demonstration of overwhelming military power against a renegade state will send
a message to the nonstate actors.

Counterterrorism’s conceptual lacuna of not factoring in media coverage

becomes all the more glaring when we take into consideration that there are no
foolproof ways to prevent each and every act of terrorism, let alone suicide
attacks that are virtually indefensible.

No amount of intelligence gathering and monitoring of “chatter” or erecting

security barriers to secure vulnerable targets can stop every planned attack.
Not if all target-rich democracies are potential theaters of terrorist
operations. The only option is to neutralize the efficacy of terrorism as an
instrument of propaganda.

Nearly 40 years ago, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP) assembled 60 international television networks and blew up three
hijacked, but empty, Boeing aircrafts at Dawson airfield in Amman, Jordan, it
became obvious that without the media coverage of terrorism would be reduced to
what it actually is: a low-intensity and indiscriminate violence perpetrated by
a small number of non-state actors with limited resources and reach.

Yet, no effort has ever been made to curtail media coverage on the plea that it
would be an affront to the freedom of the press and amount to an undemocratic
measure of censorship.

But that wouldn’t be the case, if there is a voluntary effort by the media
itself. After all, over the past two decades, and certainly since 9/11,
citizens, institutions and businesses in every country that has been a target of
terrorism have made sacrifices and accepted restrictions on their freedoms, in
an effort to prevent terrorist attacks.

It is only the Fifth Estate that seems to be exempt from contributing to this
global effort. If anything, the visual media, particularly the American
television networks that broadcast globally, have profited from greater
viewership, thanks to the coverage of terrorist activities that have gone up
exponentially in recent years.

The visual media and terrorism have a mutually reinforcing relationship, which
needs to be broken to the detriment of the latter.

As for the issue of press freedom, the news media, particularly in America, are
not unfamiliar with either self-censorship in the interest of national security
or entering into deals with the local, state and federal governments for
specific purposes in the larger interest of the audience they serve.

Even if one should consider Islamic terrorism as a generational phenomenon that

will dissipate when the conditions that breed it change for the better -- not
unlike the radical terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s – terrorism as a weapon of
political struggle will remain, in this media-driven global village, an
attractive option for future subnational actors with new causes.

Liberal democracies cannot afford to let the freedom of the press continue to
serve the forces that seek to undermine them. Perhaps, it is time for an
international conference of leading media organizations to discuss and consider
guidelines for an appropriate embargo on terrorism coverage.

Sunil Adam is the editor of The Indian American, a general-interest magazine

published from New York. He has been a commentator on issues related to
international terrorism for nearly two decades.

On the record: Mumbai and media coverage

Barkha Dutt
Group Editor- English News, NDTV
Thursday, December 04, 2008 1:15 PM (New Delhi)

BARKHA DUTT RESPONDS TO SOME QUESTIONS RAISED ON MEDIA COVERAGE

Sixty hours of live television at the best of times is impossibly difficult.

But when it involves an ongoing and precarious terrorist operation and a
potential danger to the lives of hundreds of people, it throws up challenges of
the kind that none of us have ever dealt with before.

Even those of us who have reported for years, on conflict, war and counter
insurgency weren't prepared for what we encountered in Mumbai: an audacious
attack on a city that was more in the nature of an invasion of India, than
terrorism in any form, that we have known before.

As India debates where to go from here and whether a "war on terror"

is the borrowed slogan that should define our response, I notice there is a
different sort of civil war brewing; one that places us in the media on the
other side of the enemy line.
For every Mumbaikar who believes we did the best we could in very trying
circumstances- and we have received thousands and thousands of such messages-
there are some others who are now questioning our ethics, our integrity and our
professionalism. On the streets of Mumbai, I only met people who thanked us for
providing a larger sense of community to a city seething with rage and grief.
But as I fly back to Delhi, Im told that "hate" groups are trying to
compete with "fan" communities on social networking sites like
Facebook and Orkut. The Internet apparently is buzzing with vitriol and we, in
the media in general, and sometimes, me in particular, are being targeted with a
venom that is startling. I understand that India is angry, nerves are frazzled
and emotions heightened. Even so,many of the charges are not just offensive.
malicious and entirely untrue; they are a convenient transference of
responsibility. This is not to say, that we made no mistakes-
I am sure we inadvertently made a few- as did every department of government,
when faced with a situation that India has never dealt with before. But to park
concocted and slanderous charges at our door is simply unacceptable, grossly
unfair and saddening.

I would also like to stress though that this eruption of allegations is only
one small part of a larger picture. In the past week, we have also received
countless words of support and encouragement- from thousands of people - Indian
citizens of every hue and ilk across the country, as well as some better known
ones, like Narayan Murthy, Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, Sunil Khilnani and
Suketu Mehta, to name just a few. When asked in an interview on NDTV, what
struck him watching the events unfold on television, Narayan Murthy, said it was
the "finest piece of TV journalism in a decade."

But in journalism, we know that, praise and criticism are twins that travel
together. And we welcome both and try and listen to both carefully.

So, for those who wrote in to tell us that we got it right- Thank you so much.
Your words encourage us.

But for those who charged us with crimes we absolutely assert we have not
committed, here is our response. Some of it is answer to general questions about
the media and some to specific charges made against our organization.

1. Please do note that at all times, the media respected the security cordon- a
cordon that was determined by the police and officials on site- and NOT by the
media. If, as is now being suggested, the assessment is that the media was
allowed too close to the operations, here is what we say: we would have been
happy to stand at a distance much further away from the encounter sites, had
anyone, anyone at all, asked us to move. In the 72 hours that we stood on
reporting duty, not once were we asked to move further away. We often delayed
live telecasting of images that we thought were sensitive so as to not
compromise the ongoing operation. Not once, were we asked by anyone in
authority, to switch our cameras off, or withhold images. When we did so, it was
entirely our own assessment that perhaps it was safest to do so. Across the
world, and as happened in the US after 9/11, there are daily, centralized
briefings by officials to avoid any inadvertent
confusion that media coverage may throw up. Not so in Mumbai. There was no
central point of contact or information for journalists who were often left to
their own devices to hunt down news that they felt had to be conveyed to their
country. No do's and don'ts were provided by officials. While we
understand that this situation was new for everyone involved, and so the
government could not have been expected to have a full plan for media coverage,
surely the same latitude should be shown to us? The NSG chief even thanked the
media for our consistent co-operation. Later the NSG commandos personally
thanked me for showcasing their need for a dedicated aircraft- which they
shockingly did not have - they have now been given that after NDTV's special
report was aired.

We have only the greatest respect and admiration for our armed forces, and
throughout the coverage repeatedly underlined how they are our greatest heroes.
But we were taken aback to hear the Navy Chief, branding us as a "disabling
force," for reporting on an ongoing operation. If that is the case, why
were his own officers briefing us on camera, bang in the middle of an ongoing
operation and that too when they only had a few rushed moments at the site of
encounters? Before the encounter was over at either the Taj or the Oberoi, his
marine commandos even held a hastily called press conference that was telecast
live, with their permission, across channels. If we were indeed the obstacle, or
the "disabling force" why did they have time for us in the middle of
an operation? While shooting the messenger is convenient , the government also
needs to introspect and determine whether it has an information dissemination
system in place that is geared for such
crises. Blanking out channels- as was done for a few hours- may not be the
ideal solution. It only leads to more rumour mongering, panic and falsehoods
spreading in already uncertain situation.

2. Why did we interview waiting relatives who staked out at the hotels as they
waited for news on their families and friends? Quite simply, because they WANTED
to talk. Allegations that I or any of my colleagues across the industry shoved a
microphone in the faces of any waiting relative, are untrue in the extreme.
Television, for many of these people, became a medium to express pain, grief,
anger and hope. Sometimes, they expressed the desire to speak, because as they
said, they just wanted to feel like they were doing something, instead of
sitting by on the pavement for endless, countless hours. Many did not want to
speak or be filmed, and they were neither pressured nor asked. Many personally
asked me for my telephone number, and got in touch, requesting whether they
could come on our shows and make their appeals. And besides, wasn't the
issue at hand as much about their potential loss and anxieties, as it was about
an ongoing gunbattle? Wasn't it
important to touch upon the human dimension and not just the military one? I
believe strongly that it was. Capturing suffering on live television is a
delicate issue that needs the utmost sensitivity. We believed we showed that
sensitivity, by not thrusting microphones in people's faces, by respecting
privacy if people asked for identities or images to be withheld, by never
showing a ghoulish close-up of a body, and by respecting the limits set by the
people themselves. Those limits were different for different people and had to
be adapted to subjectively. But every interview of a relative that was aired on
any of my shows, was done so with the full consent and participation of the
people speaking. If they wanted to share their story, vent, give an outlet for
their grief or just make an appeal for peace- and the emotions varied- how can
other people out there determine that they should not be speaking? But to say
that we had no business talking to
families is an entirely naive and misplaced criticism. They chose to talk. In
every case, it was their choice to share and to speak. And their voices were in
fact the real tragedy and needed to be heard and told.

Similarly, when the rescued hostages first emerged from the hotels many of them
WANTED to speak because they wanted to let their families know they were safe.
The unfortunate absence of a cordon created an avoidable crowding in of
journalists. But every rescued hostage who appeared on any of our shows did so
entirely voluntarily. Every participant on We the People, including Shameem, a
man who lost six members of his family at the CST railway station was there
because they wanted to share their tragedy or miraculous escape or trauma in a
wider community. Shameem, who said he did not have money to bury his dead, has
since been offered help and rehabilitation by our viewers. In that moment,
television provided a wider sense of community, when no one else had the time or
wherewithal to talk to the waiting relatives.

3. Could we have been more aware of the suffering and tragedy of those killed
in the first few hours at the CST railway station and not got singularly focused
on the two hotels? On this one point, I would concede that perhaps, this was a
balance we lost and needed to redress earlier on during the coverage. But,
mostly our attention was on the hotels, because they were the sites of the live
encounters, and not because of some deliberate socio-economic prejudice. Still,
when many emails poured in on how important it was to correct this imbalance,
most of us, stood up, took notice, and tried to make amends for an unwitting
lack of balance in air time.

4. Should there be an emergency code of dos and donts for the coverage of such
crises? We in the media would welcome a framework for sensitive events and are
happy to contribute to its construction. But it is important to understand that
in the absence of any instructions on site and in the absence of any such
framework we broke NO rules. Both the NSG chief and the special secretary
complimented us three days into the coverage. So why the sudden change in our
politicians?

Finally, I would like to point out that the Navy Chief made a factually
incorrect and wholly untrue comment on NDTV's coverage during the Kargil
conflict of 1999, claiming that NDTV asked for a gun to be triggered for the
benefit of the camera. I want to state for the record: no such incident ever
took place and we have an official aknowledgment of that, including from then
Army Chief, V.P Malik. I would urge Admiral Mehta to read General V.P
Malik's book on Kargil for further clarity. General Malik was the Army Chief
during the operations and puts to rest any such controversy in his book. In a
formal letter, NDTV has also asked for an immediate retraction from the Navy and
officially complained that the comments amount to defamation. Several writers
have already pointed out how the Navy Chief has got his facts wrong. (DNA,
Indian Express, Vir Sanghvi in The Hindustan Times, Sankarshan Thakur in The
Telegraph). This, incidentally, was the same press conference where the Admiral threatened
literally to "chop the heads off" of two other reporters who aired his interview ahead of schedule.
I believe that criticism is what helps us evolve and reinvent ourselves. But
when malice and rumour are regarded as feedback, there can be no constructive
dialogue. Viewing preferences are highly subjective and always deeply personal
choices, and the most fitting rejection of someone who doesn't appeal to
your aesthetics of intelligence, is simply to flick the channel and watch
someone else. The viewer, to that extent, is king. But, when, comments begin
targeting character, morality and integrity of individuals and the commentary
becomes more about the individual, than the issue, then frankly, the anger is
just destructive and little else. More than anything else, it is tragic that at
this time, we are expressing ourselves in this fashion. Surely, India has bigger
lessons to learn and larger points to mull over, than to expend energy over
which television journalist tops the charts or falls to the bottom.

MEDIA-INDIA/ PAKISTAN: Post-Mumbai Journos Struggle Against Hostilities

By Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Dec 9 (IPS) - Pakistani and Indian journalists and

columnists, who forged personal relationships over the past two

decades during countless joint media consultations and seminars, are

struggling to overcome hostilities between their countries since the

Mumbai carnage.

These voices are all but drowned in the din emanating from the blame

and counter-blame rhetoric on either side, with India's accusations

of Pakistani involvement in the attacks being met defensively by many

Pakistanis even as evidence about Pakistani links to the attacks

grows.

Close to 200 people died after a ten-man squad, armed with assualt

rifles, grenades and explosives, rampaged through the Indian port

city of Mumbai before barricading themselves inside two luxury hotels

to hold off commandos for 60 hours from Nov. 26-28.

The one captured gunman's alleged links to a banned terrorist outfit

in Pakistan had barely begun to emerge when belligerent rhetoric from

the Indian media drew an indignant response from Pakistanis who have
since then been picking holes in the Indian arguments.

Has the media hype contributed to rising tensions between the nuclear-

armed states -- or are hostilities between the countries contributing

to tensions between their media?

Indian voices in the Pakistani media, and vice versa, disappeared

after the 1965 war. It was not until 30 years later that journalists

who met at a convention of the Pakistan-India People's Forum for

Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) in New Delhi, in 1995 began writing for

each other's publications.

The rise of the internet made communication easier even in those days

of lengthy and complicated e-mail addresses. However, during times of

tension, those writing for papers across the border sometimes

refrained from writing due to fear of reprisals -- from their

governments or from right-wing groups.

In such times, the "internalisation of myths and mindsets" as the

Indian journalist Rita Manchanda put it, comes to the fore. "More

mundanely and invisibly, such (media) manipulation results

from `routines' of news gathering, structures of ownership and the

exigencies of technology --the tyranny of `live' coverage on 24-hour

news channels."

Her observations followed consultations about how the media covered

the Kargil conflict of 1999, in "Reporting Conflict: A Radical

Critique of the Mass Media by Indian & Pakistani Journalists' ',

published by the South Asia Forum for Human Rights in May 2001.

A decade later, little appears to have changed. The rise of

independent television channels has in fact increased sensationalist

reporting as they compete for viewership, with audience ratings

jumping during live coverage of crises.

Conspiracy theories on both sides abound. One Pakistani TV host

blamed the Mumbai carnage on "Zionist Hindus" and insisted that the

captured gunman was actually a Sikh and his killed companion a Hindu.

Although the host has little credibility the episode is up on various

websites, prompting Indians to ask "Is this what Pakistani channels

are showing?"

Observers note that some Indian channels were no better. Such

conspiracy theories also have adherents in India, who insist that the

Hindu right-wing in collaboration with the Israelis was behind the

carnage.

The point is, say analysts, for anyone to discuss the identity of the

gunmen is just speculation until the facts emerge fully.

Meanwhile, the non-stop media commentary has "pulled to the surface

latent rage, deep prejudices and highlighted the incompetence of the

system," as physicist and peace activist Isa Daudpota commented in an

op-ed in Pakistani daily `Dawn' on Dec. 8.

Drawing attention to the "ridiculous confrontation" between India and

Pakistan on the Siachen glacier as well as the "core issue" of the

disputed state of Kashmir, Daudpota urged the leadership to get

together and draw up a lasting peace plan dealing with these issues.

"Not too long ago, the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad

made apparent almost identical sentiments and flaws in Pakistan's

systems. In our failures, it is sadly reassuring that we are the same

people".

The commonality in history, culture, language, music, sports and food

often creates an instant bond on a human level when journalists from

Pakistan and India meet.

One senior editor in New Delhi recalls a Pakistani hotel clerk in

Brussels who went out of his way to make the visiting Indian

comfortable. "In a sense journalists lead the 'people-to-people'

contacts by riding first on the Samjhauta Express (train between the

two countries) or taking sponsored bus rides to Lahore," he comments.

Only two media houses in Pakistan and India currently have a

correspondent each in the Indian and Pakistani capitals respectively.

Others employ locals as correspondents or stringers. With officials

in both countries reluctant (or not allowed to speak openly to the

media) it is often journalists who stand in for them.

Islamabad correspondent for the respected Indian daily `The Hindu'

Nirupama Subramaniam, told IPS that she has been feeling like

a `punching bag' since the Mumbai drama began.

"Television talk shows have continuously called upon me as if I was

the spokesman for Indian television channels, government of India,

Indian chauvinists, the whole of India. But I felt I had to go on

those programmes in order to engage with Pakistanis, especially

journalists. "

Although she felt she "wasn't getting through to anyone", viewers

appreciated her efforts. "I liked her honesty, straightforwardness

and lack of defensiveness, " a retired doctor in Karachi told IPS. "We
need to hear more such (Indian) voices in the media."

But the prevailing anger in India is hindering dialogue even among

journalists. Pakistani TV channel Indus Television's Director Current

Affairs Shaheen Salahuddin who tries to include `sane voices' from

India on her daily show `Khuli Baat' (Open Talk) was taken aback by a

recent incident involving an editor in New Delhi.

"I had met him at several conferences and called him after the Mumbai

attacks. He agreed but after that, I called three times and he was

always `in a meeting'," she told IPS. "Finally when I got my

secretary to call they told her he wouldn't talk to any Pakistani

journalist. Even Bharat Bhushan (editor of `Mail Today' who is known

to be friendly to Pakistan) didn't call me back."

When contacted, Bhushan told IPS via email that he had sent a phone

text message saying he would be unable to do the interview, which

Salahuddin apparently did not receive.

Still Salahuddin does manage to get alternative viewpoints countering

the dominant antagonism, like defence analyst Uday Bhaskar who has

even helped her with other contacts for her show. A recent episode

included the veteran Indian `peacenik' journalist and a former Indian

special forces commander.

"Even if there are tensions, war should be ruled out as an option,"

argued Indian journalist Kuldip Nayyar. However, he added grimly in

response to a question about the `war hype', "it is still very much

there".

Indian analyst Lt. Gen. (retired) Afsir Karim put it straight: both

countries "should cooperate to combat terrorism. War will complicate,

not solve the situation''.

He agreed that the Mumbai attacks would not have been possible

without local help -- a point that Pakistani commentators have been

stressing. He added that the attackers "obviously wanted to derail

the peace process and take the pressure off Pakistan's western

border".

With the Pakistan-India composite dialogue currently at a virtual

standstill, hostile comments on either side are "fed" by vested

interests, veteran Lahore-based journalist Imtiaz Alam told IPS.

Pointing to some prominent talk shows and newspaper columnists, Alam

accused them of "following the ISI's mandate". The ISI (Inter-

Services Intelligence) has for years been involved in

nurturing `jehadi' groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) that are

accused of being behind the Mumbai carnage.

Alam, who founded the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) in

July 2000, said that while the Indian media did "pre-judge and jump

to conclusions, this happens at times like these''.

A voice frequently heard on Pakistani TV channels is that of the

hawkish former ISI chief Lt. Gen. (retd.) Hamid Gul. Another retired

general, Salahuddin Tirmiz referred to India as Pakistan's "dushman

mulk" (enemy country), even before the Mumbai assaults were over.

"While India goes through its national tragedy, this so-

called `security expert' has nothing better to say than dub India

as `our enemy' and create mass hysteria in Pakistan," wrote Islamabad-

based analyst Foqia Sadiq Khan in a strong letter of protest about

Tirmizi's comment to the TV channel, a copy of which she sent IPS.

The Telegraph 4 December 2008

WE, THE PEOPLE

- The Mumbai tragedy and the English language news media

Mukul Kesavan

"Go to the Four Seasons and look down from the top floor at the
slums around you. Do you know what flags you will see? Not the
Congress's, not the BJP's, not the Shiv Sena's. Pakistan! Pakistani
flags fly high!... You know what I think? We should carpet-bomb
Pakistan. That's the only way we can give a clear message."

Simi Garewal later apologized for this little outburst on the

television show, We, the People. She said she had mistaken Muslim
flags for Pakistani ones. She had a harder time explaining away her
'carpet bombing' prescription. She claimed that she had meant to
suggest a covert attack like the below-the-radar missions Americans
so often undertake in Pakistan's borderlands. Carpet-bombing is
hard to do discreetly, but we shouldn't make too much of this
because the point isn't Simi Garewal and her gaffe: it's the way
the English language news media covered the Mumbai tragedy.

The idiom of the coverage of the terror attack on Mumbai was in

part shaped by the need to say something, anything, in the face of
horror and evil. The need to voice not just their own feelings but
the need to be a proxy for the People, to anticipate and echo a
public revulsion, seemed to overwhelm reporters and studio anchors.

The wild-eyed animation with which they spoke seemed prompted by

the belief that calm, even lucidity, was an inappropriate response
to tragedy. Barkha Dutt's agitation as she reported from sites
attacked by the terrorists was so extreme that on occasion she
seemed to hyper-ventilate on camera. Further away from the tragedy,
in a studio, Arnab Goswami ratcheted up the hectoring self-
righteousness that has come to define his manner, as he and Times
TV seek to position the channel as India's answer to Fox News.

Rajdeep Sardesai managed to be composed, compassionate and

knowledgeable at Hemant Karkare's funeral, but CNN IBN made up for
that later by framing their reports on the terror strikes in gory
graphics that could have been borrowed from the credits of a Ramsay
Brothers horror movie. With the reporters, the excitement was
understandable: it's hard to be calm with bombs going off, bullets
flying about and a landmark building burning in front of you. But
there were aspects of the coverage that didn't deserve the benefit
of the doubt.
During the crisis, the foregrounding of the Taj was inevitable. It
was the site of the longest battle and the hideous drama of its
near-destruction was bound to be framed by any sensible cameraman.
But it's still worth making the point Shyam Benegal made, that the
dozens of people killed in VT (or CST) station and their grieving
relatives and friends got very little screen time. When VT figured
in the coverage, it was there for CCTV grabs of the T-shirted
terrorist.

The Taj, we were told over and over again, is an 'iconic' building.
I think we can say without controversy that Victoria Terminus is
much the greater landmark both architecturally and in terms of the
number of people who pass through it. It may not be 'home' to them,
in the way that the Taj clearly was for the many fluent habitués of
South Mumbai who filed past the cameras of the English news
channels, but more Mumbaikars have taken trains to and from VT than
have sampled the hospitality of the Taj. And yet we didn't have
people on television reminiscing about the station and what it
meant to them, that storied building that has been the beginning
and the end of a billion journeys. Even the details of the killing,
the alertness of the public address system operator who had
platforms cleared and thus minimized the carnage, trickled out
later, as the platform tragedy that had happened was eclipsed by
the hotel tragedy that was still 'breaking news'.

I can't remember the last time that social class so clearly defined
the coverage of a public event, or one in which people spoke so
unselfconsciously from their class positions. The English news
channels became mega-churches in which hotel-going Indians found
catharsis and communion. Person after person claimed the Taj as
home. Memories of courtship, marriage, celebration, friendship, the
quick coffee, the saved-up-for snack, the sneaked lavatory visit,
came together to frame the burning Taj in a halo of affection.

The novelist, Aravind Adiga, said in an interview with the BBC:

"One of the differences between India and other countries is that a
lot of our civic space is contained within the five-star hotels.
They have a different function here for us, they are places where
marriages happen, where people of all economic backgrounds go for a
coffee. For the Taj Mahal to be attacked is somewhat like the town
hall being attacked in some other place... ." I'd wager that 99 per
cent of VT's commuters haven't seen the inside of the Sea Lounge.
Whatever else they are, five-star establishments in India are not
democratic civic spaces. Few Mumbaikars think the Taj Mahal Hotel
is their city's hôtel de ville.

The Trident, being less 'iconic', didn't get quite the same
attention as the Taj, but it wasn't left out. Shekhar Gupta used
his column on the edit-page of the Indian Express to write a
thousand-word homage to the Trident. This included descriptions of
his sleeping preferences, the number of nights he had logged at the
Trident and the considerateness of the hotel staff.

This takes us back to that third hotel, the one we began with, back
to Simi Garewal on the top floor of the Four Seasons, looking down
at the slums below her, aflutter with sinister flags. Forget the
fact that she mistook Islamic flags for Pakistani ones; anyone can
make a mistake, and she's apologized for hers. What's interesting
here is the lack of embarrassment with which she pictures herself
and people-like- her staring down disapprovingly from a great, air-
conditioned height at hovels and squalor.

Usually, privileged English-speaking Indians have the tact to be

politically correct in their public statements; but in the middle
of terror and tragedy, the sense of social self-preservation that
keeps them from crassness, disappears. "Go to the Four Seasons and
look down from the top floor at the slums around you." That 'you'
is us: Telegraph-reading, hotel-going people, who, in the heat of
the moment and because of the death of people we know (or know of),
become the world.

English and American papers treated the terror attack as an assault

on the West. The terrorists had, after all, specifically looked for
American and British citizens to murder. Ironically, even as NDTV,
CNN-IBN and Times Now put hotel guests at the heart of the horror
and bumped train commuters to its periphery, older English-speaking
peoples counted their dead and dimly regretted all Indian
casualties as collateral damage. In that residual category, if
nowhere else, the Indian dead remained one People.

Death Of A Salesman And Other Elite Ironies

Tarun J Tejpal

Rohinton Maloo was shot doing two things he enjoyed immensely. Eating good food and tossing
new ideas. He was among the 13 diners at the Kandahar, Trident-Oberoi, who were marched out
onto the service staircase, ostensibly as hostages. But the killers had nothing to bargain for. The
answers to the big questions — Babri Masjid, Gujarat, Muslim persecution — were beyond the
power of anyone to deliver neatly to the hotel lobby. The small ones — of money and
materialism — their crazed indoctrination had already taken them well beyond. With the final
banality of all fanaticism, flaunting the paradox of modern technology and medieval fervour —
AK-47 in one hand; mobile phone in the other — the killers asked their minders, “Udan dein?”
The minder, probably a maintainer of cold statistics, said, “Uda do.”
Rohinton caught seven bullets, and by the time his body was recovered, it could only be
identified by the ring on his finger. Rohinton was just 48, with two teenage children, and a
hundred plans. A few of these had to do with TEHELKA, where he was a strategic advisor for the
last two years. As Indians, we seldom have a good word to say about the living, but in the dead
we discover virtues that strain the imagination. Perhaps it has to do with a strange mix of driving
envy and blinding piety. Let me just say Rohinton was charismatic, ambitious, and a man of his
time, and place. The time was always now, and in his outstanding career in media marketing, he
was ever at the cutting edge of the new — in the creation of Star Networks, and a score of
ventures on the web. The place was always Mumbai, the city he grew up in and lived in, and he
exemplified its attitudes: the hedonism, the get-go, the easy pluralism.
For me there is a deep irony in his death. He was killed by what he set very little store by. In his
every meeting with us, he was bemused and baffled by TEHELKA’s obsessive engagement with
politics. He was quite sure no one of his class — our class — was interested in the subject.
Politics happened elsewhere, a regrettable business carried out by unsavoury characters. Mostly,
it had nothing to do with our lives. Eventually, sitting through our political ranting, he came to
grudgingly accept we may have some kind of a case. But he remained unconvinced of its
commercial viability. Our kind of readers were interested in other things, which were germane to
their lives — food, films, cricket, fashion, gizmos, television, health and the strategies of
seduction. Politics, at best, was something they endured.
In the end, politics killed Rohinton, and a few hundred other innocents. In the final count,
politics, every single day, is killing, impoverishing, starving, denigrating, millions of Indians all
across the country. If the backdrop were not so heartbreaking, the spectacle of the nation’s elite
— the keepers of most of our wealth and privilege — frothing on television screens and
screaming through mobile phones would be amusing. They have been outraged because the
enduring tragedy of India has suddenly arrived in their marbled precincts. The Taj, the Oberoi.
We dine here. We sleep here. Is nothing sacrosanct in this country any more?
What the Indian elite is discovering today on the debris of fancy eateries is an acidic truth large
numbers of ordinary Indians are forced to swallow every day. Children who die of malnutrition,
farmers who commit suicide, dalits who are raped and massacred, tribals who are turfed out of
centuryold habitats, peasants whose lands are taken over for car factories, minorities who are
bludgeoned into paranoia — these, and many others, know that something is grossly wrong. The
system does not work, the system is cruel, the system is unjust, the system exists to only serve
those who run it. Crucially, what we, the elite, need to understand is that most of us are complicit
in the system. In fact, chances are the more we have — of privilege and money — the more
invested we are in the shoring up of an unfair state.
IT IS time each one of us understood that at the heart of every society is
its politics. If the politics is third-rate, the condition of the society will
be no better. For too many decades now, the elite of India has washed
its hands off the country’s politics. Entire generations have grown up viewing it as a distasteful
activity. In an astonishing perversion, the finest imaginative act of the last thousand years on the
subcontinent, the creation and flowering of the idea of modern India through mass politics, has
for the last 40 years been rendered infra dig, déclassé, uncool. Let us blame our parents, and let
our children blame us, for not bequeathing onwards the sheer beauty of a collective vision,
collective will, and collective action. In a word, politics: which, at its best, created the wonder of
a liberal and democratic idea, and at its worst threatens to tear it down.
We stand faulted then in two ways. For turning our back on the collective endeavour; and for our
passive embrace of the status quo. This is in equal parts due to selfish instinct and to shallow
thinking. Since shining India is basically only about us getting an even greater share of the pie,
we have been happy to buy its half-truths, and look away from the rest of the sordid story. Like
all elites, historically, that have presided over the decline of their societies, we focus too much of
our energy on acquiring and consuming, and too little on thinking and decoding. Egged on by a
helium media, we exhaust ourselves through paroxysms over vacant celebrities and trivia, quite
happy not to see what might cause us discomfort.
For years, it has been evident that we are a society being systematically hollowed out by
inequality, corruption, bigotry and lack of justice. The planks of public discourse have
increasingly been divisive, widening the faultlines of caste, language, religion, class, community
and region. As the elite of the most complex society in the world, we have failed to see that we
are ratcheted into an intricate framework, full of causal links, where one wrong word begets
another, one horrific event leads to another. Where one man’s misery will eventually trigger
another’s.
Let’s track one causal chain. The Congress creates Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to neutralise the
Akalis; Bhindranwale creates terrorism; Indira Gandhi moves against terrorism; terrorism
assassinates Indira Gandhi; blameless Sikhs are slaughtered in Delhi; in the course of a decade,
numberless innocents, militants, and securitymen die. Let’s track another. The BJP takes out an
inflammatory rath yatra; inflamed kar sewaks pull down the Babri Masjid; riots ensue; vengeful
Muslims trigger Mumbai blasts; 10 years later a bogey of kar sewaks is burnt in Gujarat; in the
next week 2,000 Muslims are slaughtered; six years later retaliatory violence continues. Let’s
track one more. In the early 1940s, in the midst of the freedom movement, patrician Muslims
demand a separate homeland; Mahatma Gandhi opposes it; the British support it; Partition
ensues; a million people are slaughtered; four wars follow; two countries drain each other through
rhetoric and poison; nuclear arsenals are built; hotels in Mumbai are attacked.
IN EACH of these rough causal chains, there is one thing in common. Their origin in the
decisions of the elite. Interlaced with numberless lines of potential divisiveness, the India
framework is highly delicate and complicated. It is critical for the elite to understand the
framework, and its role in it. The elite has its hands on the levers of capital, influence and
privilege. It can fix the framework. It has much to give, and it must give generously. The mass,
with nothing in its hands, nothing to give, can out of frustration and anger, only pull it all down.
And when the volcano blows, rich and poor burn alike.
And so what should we be doing? Well, screaming at politicians is certainly not political
engagement. And airy socialites demanding the carpet-bombing of Pakistan and the boycott of
taxes are plain absurd, just another neon sign advertising shallow thought. It’s the kind of dumb
public theatre the media ought to deftly side-step rather than showcase. The world is already
over-shrill with animus: we need to tone it down, not add to it. Pakistan is itself badly damaged
by the flawed politics at its heart. It needs help, not bombing. Just remember, when hardboiled
bureaucrats clench their teeth, little children die.
Most of the shouting of the last few days is little more than personal catharsis through public
venting. The fact is the politician has been doing what we have been doing, and as an über Indian
he has been doing it much better. Watching out for himself, cornering maximum resource, and
turning away from the challenge of the greater good.
The first thing we need to do is to square up to the truth. Acknow ledge the fact that we have
made a fair shambles of the project of nation-building. Fifty million Indians doing well does not
for a great India make, given that 500 million are grovelling to survive. Sixty years after
independence, it can safely be said that India’s political leadership — and the nation’s elite —
have badly let down the country’s dispossessed and wretched. If you care to look, India today is
heartbreak hotel, where infants die like flies, and equal opportunity is a cruel mirage.
Let’s be clear we are not in a crisis because the Taj hotel was gutted. We are in a crisis because
six years after 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Gujarat there is still no sign of justice. This is
the second thing the elite need to understand — after the obscenity of gross inequality. The plinth
of every society — since the beginning of Man — has been set on the notion of justice. You
cannot light candles for just those of your class and creed. You have to strike a blow for every
wronged citizen.
And let no one tell us we need more laws. We need men to implement those that we have. Today
all our institutions and processes are failing us. We have compromised each of them on their
values, their robustness, their vision and their sense of fairplay. Now, at every crucial juncture we
depend on random acts of individual excellence and courage to save the day. Great systems,
triumphant societies, are veined with ladders of inspiration. Electrified by those above them, men
strive to do their very best. Look around. How many constables, head constables, sub-inspectors
 would risk their lives for the dishonest, weak men they serve, who in
turn serve even more compromised masters?
I wish Rohinton had survived the lottery of death in Mumbai last week.
In an instant, he would have understood what we always went on about. India’s crying need is not
economic tinkering or social engineering. It is a political overhaul, a political cleansing. As it
once did to create a free nation, India’s elite should start getting its hands dirty so they can get a
clean country.

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 49, Dated Dec 13, 2008

TV blabbering is not journalism: Lessons from the live

coverage
IANS
Thursday, December 04, 2008 12:17 IST

News channel bosses must be patting themselves on the back on their marathon terror coverage. For
three days they had treated the viewers to live coverage of the multiple terror strikes in Mumbai. In doing
so, they probably set a record in television history.

As the terrorists delivered the heaviest blow yet on the country, the 24x7 news channels rose to the
occasion. They took the nation's attention off everything else so that it could concentrate fully on the
mayhem in Mumbai. What more could the terrorists have asked for?

With the terrorists operating simultaneously on several fronts, there was plenty to do and the channels
rushed their best talents and possibly additional equipment to Mumbai to augment the resources available
locally. Cameras were deployed on all war fronts and they instantly brought into drawing rooms (or
wherever else the TV sets were) the sights and sounds that they picked up.

The reporters kept up an incessant flow of words, either on their own or in response to questions posed by
anchors sitting in the studios. Their labour earned handsome rewards in terms of TRP ratings, and that
certainly is reason enough to celebrate.

TRP is not a measure of professional performance. It is, therefore, to be hoped that when the euphoric
mood wears out, the media bosses will make an effort to objectively assess their performance in strictly
professional terms.

At an early stage in the live coverage, the cameras picked up the image of a gun-wielding young man,
warily watching the surroundings. The reporter and the anchor helpfully informed the viewers that they
did not know whether he was a terrorist or a commando!

On the second day, while all eyes were on the Taj, the Oberoi and Nariman House, the channels 'broke'
news of fresh gunfire at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, where terrorists had mowed down scores of
passengers the previous day. One anchor, with his superior knowledge of the topography of Bori Bunder,
explained to viewers that it was an area with many buildings and that he was not able to state whether
the shooting took place in the rail terminus or some other building near by.

Actually, at that point, his channel was scrolling a headline which said the shooting was on Platform No.8
of CST.
At that very point, on another channel, a reporter was informing viewers that the shooting was on
Platforms No. 14 and No. 15, from where long distance trains leave.

Later in the day the Indian Railways denied there had been any firing at the station on that day.

In the coverage of a running story, unfolding itself simultaneously at different locations, inaccurate
information creeping in is not entirely unusual. However, in this instance, there is reason to suspect that
reporters, eager to break news, had gone on air without waiting for confirmation from either the police or
the railways, the two sources that could be relied upon for information about a shooting incident in a
railway station.

On the third day, as the Taj nightmare was drawing to a close, the anchor and reporter of a channel were
engaged in a heroic effort to make sense out of sounds emerging from the hotel. According to the National
Security Guard, a lone terrorist was still holding out inside the hotel at the time.

The reporter, crouching on the ground, drew the viewers' attention to gunfire. The anchor asked from
which floor it was coming. "First floor," said the reporter. More explosions followed. When the seventh
explosion was reported, the anchor asked where it was coming from, the same floor or somewhere else.
The reporter said this one appeared to be from the ground floor. The two then speculated on the
possibility of the lone terrorist moving from one floor to another as though his precise location was a
crucial matter.

Like the national channels, CNN and BBC also provided extended live coverage of the terror strike. Since
they did not have their own cameras at the scenes of action, they turned to the Indian channels for
visuals. While the CNN drew visuals from its local partner CNN-IBN, BBC picked feeds from the Hindi
channels.

However, the words the viewers heard were their own. There was no meaningless chatter by the anchors
and correspondents. There was no speculation either. Instead, there were reports which bore the imprint
of professional journalists.

Live television has opened up new possibilities. The marathon Mumbai terror coverage has shown that
Indian news channels have yet to learn how to make effective use of the facility that technology has put
at their disposal. They must realize that the media's job is to gather and disseminate information. Seeing
is not knowing, much less understanding. The sights and sounds the switched-on camera picks up have to
be made intelligible to the viewers. Blabbering by anchors and reporters, howsoever entertaining, is not
an adequate substitute for professional reporting.

'Indian TV channels obsessed with three Cs'

Agencies
Posted: 2008-03-10 15:56:45+05:30 IST
Updated: Mar 10, 2008 at 1617 hrs IST
London, March 10:: Television news channels in India are obsessed with celebrity culture which
centres on Bollywood while the three Cs - cinema, crime and cricket encapsulate most of their
content, according to new book.
News content on Indian television channels has become hostage to the global spectre of
infotainment as reflected in the “Bollywoodization” of the news culture, says Daya K Thussu,
professor at the University of Westminster.
In his book titled “News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment”, Thussu looks at the
rise of infotainment - the merging of information and entertainment - across the globe.
“The three Cs - cinema, crime and cricket - encapsulate most of the content on Indian television
news programmes. The three Cs are indicative of a television news culture that is increasingly
becoming hostage to infotainment,” he writes.
Thussu adds that the growing tabloidization of television news reflected the influence of the
Rupert Murdoch effect on news and current affairs television in India.
It can be argued, he writes, that the ideological imperatives of infotainment were debasing the
quality of public deliberations in the world’s largest democracy.
In a separate chapter titled “Indian infotainment: the Bollywoodization of TV news,” Thussu
traces the history of the growth of television in India, and notes that Indian television news now
demonstrated a global trend towards infotainment.

TV channels rapped for coverage of terror attacks; govt proposes guidelines

Two TV channels have been served show cause notices for reporting on the terror strikes on
Mumbai in a manner that created insecurity among people as well as endangered the lives of both
the security forces and people caught up in the attacks
The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry has issued show cause notices to two television
channels for their reporting of the three-day attack mounted by a group of terrorists on several
locations in Mumbai, on November 26, 2008. It has also proposed setting up a committee to frame
guidelines for reporting in combat situations.
Television cameras were allowed very close to the three main locations where the terror strike
continued for three days, and were able to relay a second-by-second account of the siege and
attempts by the security forces to release people trapped inside buildings.
India TV was served a notice for airing a conversation with a terrorist during the attack.
Subsequently, the I&B ministry sent an advisory to all news and current affairs channels, on
December 4, 2008, advising them to stop broadcasting reports that could shake people’s
confidence in the Indian polity, and prevent the nation from returning to normalcy by repeatedly
showing gory details of the attacks.
“Repeated visuals and stories pertaining to the attack, which would make the perpetrators feel
their attack was a success, should be avoided. The media is hereby advised to play the positive
role it has in its power to play, to instil confidence in the citizens and send a message to the
inimical terrorist forces that India is not in disarray.”
The advisory goes on to warn: “The media is also advised that continued unbalanced reporting,
which inhibits the restoration of normalcy and propagates a feeling of insecurity, may be treated
as coverage against the interest of the nation in the circumstances and attract appropriate action as
per rules and as per the terms and conditions of the permission granted for uplinking and
downlinking of TV channels in India.”
Prior to the advisory, on November 28, 2008 the I&B ministry summoned news media owners
along with the Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF) and News Broadcasting Association (NBA)
chiefs to express concern over coverage of the terror attacks by the national news channels.
The coverage was seen as harmful enough for the police to black out news channels during the
day. An order sent by the deputy commissioner of police said that the “transmission of various
clippings/live relay/coverage of the actions being taken by the police against the terrorists in south
Mumbai is causing impediment in the police action… thereby endangering the lives of the police
personnel as also of the hostages”. The government, however, intervened and cancelled the order.
The second news channel to be served a show cause notice is Aaj Tak. The notice was issued on
December 5, 2008, for a report that it had telecast during the terror attack and which the ministry
thought was ‘misleading’.
With no code of conduct in place for reporting on such events, TV channels have the freedom to
report whatever they want to. At the meeting that the IBF and NBA had with the ministry, media
owners reportedly argued that there was, at present, lack of structured information from the
government to the broadcast media. Moreover, there was no clarity on officials that could be
contacted to verify or cross-check information.
On December 7, the government said it would set up a committee to frame guidelines for coverage
of combat situations. “We have learnt our lesson and will soon frame a mechanism and policy in
this regard,” said Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anand Sharma. The
committee will comprise representatives from the Editors Guild and NBA and will be headed by
the secretary, I&B.
Source: The Indian Express, December 8, 2008