Is Indian Media Industry Irresponsible?
It has been almost two weeks that the biggest and most heinous terror attack on Indian soil had ended. Life is slowly coming back to normal. But the post mortem and ghost hunting will continue for a long time to come. Here, I will try to express my views on roles played by the media.
I was watching the Mumbai carnage on T.V. Suddenly the channel switched to broadcast a news conference called by the Indian government where a government spokesman had to appeal to the media (especially the electronic media i.e. TV) not to show everything live live as intelligence sources suggested that terrorists were getting wind of rescue moves by security forces well before they were actually being carried out. After the news conference was over, the channel switched back to the war zone and resumed live broadcasting. It was seen that hundreds of journalists - both from electronic and print media were jostling for the best coverage while commandos were seen getting ready to fire from their mortars at a particular target and the cameraman following the target and showing a very close picture of the same using the advanced zoom. No wonder, terrorists could see where the attacks were coming from and what was the target as the correspondent was explaining everything clearly for the viewers.
No wonder a great commercial move as it had the audience glued to the screen.
The question is, is it responsible journalism especially when those heinous terrorists were taking advantage of the live TV broadcasting? There was a time when the media used to practice restraint, act as keeper of Read the rest of this entry »