Did national media give adequate attention to it? No. Though compared to past, the channels gave a few extra seconds but the coverage was far from satisfactory. There were hardly any analyses and detailed reports.
And there was no emphasis on talking to the families of victims. The fonts of headlines were slightly bigger because the bomb blasts occurred on the eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Assam.
Soon the news about Shahrukh and Amir Khan coming together, eclipsed all. Among newspapers, Indian Express covered the story better than other papers. This is not surprising as ULFA remainst just a militant outfit for the media.
It somehow doesn't probably qualify as a terrorist group in the eyes of our editors. Or is it that Assam and the entire North East still remain a distant part of India, which the newsrooms in Delhi don't relate to, as much as they do when the Cities ravaged are Bangalore or even a small town like Modasa?
Compare this with the media and Net treatment of the Khandmal incidents when the entire Khandmal had only less than a lakh of Christians. Even Vatican Radio, [the Voice of Truth] reported for days that many nuns had been raped and one torched alive. Only one nun belatedly alleged rape, though her medical reports said otherwise. A Hindu employee of an Orphanage School was the nun alleged to be burnt alive.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Assam incidents began a fortnight later, more than 9000 had been killed according to unofficial reports, in the first three days.