Scribes cause Suicide: Man kills himself due to journalists!

Two journalists working for GTPL and Hyderbabd-based TV9 coaxed a man to attempt suicide by setting himself afire in order to get government's attention but when he got engulfed in flames, they didn't try to save him.

Kalpesh Mistri had believed that he would just set himself ablaze and the journalists would save him. But he he was not saved. A tea stall owner who made the complaint to police, said that the journalists even stopped him from going towards Mistri when he was getting burnt.

Mistri died of burns. Now the Gujarat police have registered case of abetment of suicide against Kamlesh and Mayur, the reporters. This is not the first such incident in India. But shouldn't channel owners also introspect? The fixation with TRP is threatening journalistic ethos and is hurting the image of news media.

Reporters and stringers in small towns get no salary but a small amount per story that gets telecast. As a result, journalists try to create stories. This is an utterly disgusting situation. Channel heads must pay fixed salary so that journalists shun this tendency to go for sensation by creating news rather than reporting facts.

Update: Journalists not guilty

The Broadcast Editor's Association has found that the police falsely implicated the two journalists and blamed them for instigating the man to hide their failure in acting timely.

The fact finding committee found the role of police suspicious. Even the FIR against journalists appeared motivated and filed at the behest of senior police officers.

India TV upsets Bohras: Internet-based low IQ journalism causes major goof-up [Baitullah story]

Excessive reliance of internet and declining standards of journalism have resulted in acute emarrassment for Rajat Sharma's India TV.

Searching the internet and trusting the results without verifying has put the channel in deep trouble. The blunder of showing the head of Dawoodi Bohra community, Syedna Burhanuddin, in a programme that focused on Taliban, has the entire sect up in arms against the channel.

If you search google image for any person or event, it is not necessary that the result is exactly what you want. Any other image present on the page can also be shown. It's not for nothing that the old adage 'one needs brains for copying' is repeated so often.

So they were doing a story on Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsood. It seems in search, the page showed up the image of the holy figure of Bohras. And without verifying, the dumb heads inserted it along side a fake 'created news' of Baitullah's so-called marriage 'nikah' ceremony.

His Holiness Dr. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (TUS) is the spiritual head of Bohras, who are a peace loving and gentle community. But their patience ran out. Many of them reached the India TV office and rest have protested in the towns wherever they live.

The channel has apologised. But will it learn? The standard of journalism and journalists are deteriorating. They read less and rarely consuled encyclopedias, rather prefer wikipedia or a search engine and don't use brain when they go for search.

India TV has been criticised for its stress on spreading rumours and showing news and shows based on superstitions, spirits and sensationalism. The latest incident has hit its credibility. But one expects that other channels would learn a lesson and urge their staff to use brains.

Indian Media's softness on LTTE's terrorism

The Al-Qaeda like attack by the LTTE in Colombo didn't generate any outrage in Indian media.

In most newspapers, the air-craft attack in Sri Lankan capital were termed as 'daredevil attacks' by 'rebels' or 'Tamil Tigers'. There was no mention to the word Terrorism.

This is the same Indian media that brands any body who is a mere 'suspect' because of a police version, as terrorist. From SIMI to Abhinav Bharat (Malegaon blast accused case) and Sri Ram Sena, the word 'militant' and 'terrorist' is used quite easily.

Even words like 'Hindu terrorism' and 'Muslim terrorism' are used commonly. But the organisation that is responsible for the first suicide bombing on Indian soil--LTTE is let off easily. Most papers called the attackers as either LTTE guerillas, separatists, Kamikaze or rebels.

None termed them as Tamil Terrorists or LTTE Terrorist or just Terrorists. Its important for Indian media to deliberate discuss and arrive on a definition of terrorism.

Else, it must be answered why the group led by V Prabhakaran that is responsible for killing of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is never termed as a terrorist organisation?

Media frenzy over Jamia Nagar encounter: Mail Today points out loopholes in police version

Indian journalism has just changed. It has taken a drastic shift. It no longer asks questions, rather it accepts the police version.

Seeking truth is no more on its agenda. The courts aren't needed now. Just police version is enough to term anybody a terrorist. Sadly this happens in Delhi, the national capital.

The difference between a suspect, an accused and a convict, has ceased to exist. The result is that the same police that is termed 'useless' for failing to solve a murder case on a particular day by the media, gets so much praise that it is taken to the pedestal of 'saviours' the next day.

It's like a theatre now. Just like one day you criticise Dhoni and say that he is a waste and the other day he wins a match for you, and you are all praise for him. But this is dangerous for civil society. With all due respects to slain Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, we must remember that middle-class lumpenisation and such poor journalism would be detrimental for any democracy.

Indian press must act like a fourth estate & the scribes must not become 'embedded journalists'.

We don't say that the encounter is fake. But the fact that every time a new mastermind comes up and media accepts it, forgetting that the person named the mastermind and blamed for the same blsat earlier is now probably either lodged in jail or acquitted.

The media just ignored that Waliullah who was accused of bombings in courts, has been absolved of anti-national activities recently. Now new masterminds are blamed for those crimes. We all hope that those behind the blasts should be arrested and there must not be any eyewash.

It was in Delhi that the infamous Cannaught Place encounter had taken place ten years ago. Then also the middle-class and the majority of papers accepted the version. It later surfaced that the encounter was fake and court sentenced 10 cops.

And it was the same 'encounter specialists' of the Delhi police's cell, the officials of which took pride in flaunting the number of persons they had shot. The same team. At least, media shouldn't be so gullible.

Bharat Bhushan's Mail Today, though it comes from the stable of India Today, has stood out as a newspaper that doesn't get swayed by the frenzy. Let the police complete the investigations and the courts should be allowed to do their jobs.

1.Atif submitted his personal identification documents including driving licence, even photographs and cell phone number for police verification. The documents were with police.

2. Why Atif provided correct details about himself to police.

3. No terrorist would give his photograph to police after having staged a series of killer blasts (Ahmedabad and others), said an intelligence official, reported Mail Today on September 20.

4. Atif Ameen was brain behind Indian Mujahideen, had plotted and executed blasts in three cities that claimed 100 lives and had forged tenancy verification papers. The police statements are riddled with holes.

5. If police were acting on a ti;p-off why there was no protective gear for police. Even the slain inspector didn't have the proper footwear.

6. If Atif and his housemates were hardened terrorists what stopped them from using AK 47 which they said were at the terrorist's disposal. Why did they use only the pistols?

7. He submitted his papers at Jamia Nagar police station on August 20. Wouldn't it have been easier for him to fudge his identity or better still, retreat to safety of his home village?

8. On Friday, Aatif's flatmate Zeeshan took two re-exams to improve his percentage at IIPM and then re-appeared on TV channel to defend the innocence of his friend Atif. If he was a terrorist, he would have been better off fleeing Delhi after TV channels news broke of encounter. Police had no clue about his whereabouts and was arrested moments after he appeared on Headlines Today.

9. Had Atif planted the bombs that rocked Ahmedabad and Jaipur, would he be giving his home address in police verification report on August 15, three weeks after Ahmedabad blasts?

10. Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Karnail Singh said two youth escaped in the thick of action. Was it possible for two men to escape from a rabbit warren of a building with tiny rooms? They couldn't have escaped from the narrow lane teeming with policemen. The entire area was full of policemen and all residents and shopkeepers were earlier asked to go inside their homes and down shutters. Nobody else was on streets except policemen. To escape, the two would have had to jump from fourth floor, they'd have died.

11. How did Abu Bashar, in police custody for long, give clues only now?

Evening newspaper Mail Today in its September 20, 21 issues asks:

Newspaper poses questions to Jt CP

What exactly was the tip-off?

If the tip-off was about terror suspects why were the police not in terror gear and using bullet proof vests?

How the two escape if there was no back door or staircase?

Did Atif Ameen and his roommates give all their details to police?

If the suspected terrorists were involved in blasts, why would they submit these details to police?

Why did Zeeshan appear in public on TV channel if he was involved in blasts?

Who are the two who escaped? What are their names?

Why would a terrorist continue with his studies with 79% class attendance if he want to blow away cities?

Why were policemen not in anti-terror gear, one was wearing track suit, the other wearing sandals?

Meanwhile, it is pertinent to read Vir Sanghvi's article on Encounters. It is insightful:

Other cases of mistaken identity have rarely caused a stir if the victims have
been poor or powerless. A few years ago, the Bombay Police shot a chanawallah
dead after mistaking him for a gangster. The papers tried to make a fuss but
readers were simply not interested.

Can any society afford a policy where any policeman can kill anybody at will and then later claim that the victim was a gangster or a terrorist? And yet, that’s exactly where India is headed.

Link http://www.mailtoday.in/

Channels cause mass hysteria over Big Bang: Girl ends life, two others die

A 16-year-old girl died in Madhya Pradesh due to the mass hysteria caused by electronic news channels over the 'upcoming end of the world' in context of the experiment to re-create Big Bang in a lab in Switzerland.

She was watching the TV for the last couple of days and got so panicked that she consumed poison in her house in Sarangpur.

Her father said that though they tried to console her that nothing of this sort is going to happen when she repeatedly asked them the same question earlier, she got so terribly upset that she ended her life.

In UP, a teacher Gulab Singh had a cardiac arrest while watching TV. Another youth Sukh Ram died in similar circumstances in Hardoi. The electronic channels keep blowing up things for their TRPs and create panic in society, which is a crime.

It's time the editors and news editors of all these channels who termed it 'Maha Pralaya' be booked for scare, nuisance, mischief and causing deaths. They should be sent behind bars else journalism will become a joke (though it has already become). Do these channels have the morality left to show the news that these false reports have led to these deaths?

Exaggerated reports about attacks on Indians in Kenya

Some news channels and papers have published exaggerated account of the violence in Kenya. The Indians, mostly Gujaratis, who live in Kenya are as much at risk as others.

It is true that local residents in Kenya don't like Indians much because the Gujaratis own businesses and are often seen as 'outsiders who have exploited their country'. But such was the exaggeration that false reports creating panic were aired on TV channels.

Dainik Jagran, a Hindi newspaper, with a massive circulation, gave the kind of headline like 'Ek lakh Bharatiya khatre mein' (One lakh Indians at risk). The paper is notorious though and has a bad track record for triggering violence and reporting sensitive issues.

Other channels also gave the impression that many Indians were killed. The 'flashes' would show that 'Indians targeted' followed by '300 killed' as if the figure was on Indians and didn't clarify that it was overall figure and there was not one Indian, who died.

Just the fact that expatriate Indians are involved and there was an Indian connection, the section of media including respectable English channels, showed utter irresponsibility and went overboard while reporting a mob violence which began after elections in that country.

Bloodbath in Bengal: 10 killed in Nandigram, police brutality on women

Nearly a dozen were killed in firing at Nandigram in West Bengal and national media (electronic) was oblivious--discussing cricket world cup and other nonsense.

Ironically, when the toll was already reported to be over 15, Aaj Tak was busy with 'Vaardaat' and the 3 pm news had Aurangabad serial killer's story as first lead followed by other trivial things. Star News was celebrating Amir Khan's birthday and the rest were busy in astrology and crime capsules.

It was not until late afternoon that Zee TV started showing images of police brutality. Poor womenfolk carrying babies were hit with lathis. The anchors were busy asking questions about Buddhadeb's politics and land acquisition at Singur, Nandigram.

But none of them asked questions about police brutality on women. I watched in horror as the men in khaki who are paid to protect us, launched attack on citizens. 'Will they ever treat their own family with such brutality?" Why this repeated police firing on unarmed citizens and the cop brutality doesn't become a national issue. Anchors who ask nonsensical questions to politicians, never grill 'leaders' on this issue.

Couple's suicide due to intrusion of electronic channels

The suicide by a couple in Delhi due to the invasion of electronic channel's in their privacy is a shocking incident.

It was bound to happen anywhere with the channel reporters using their microphones as weapons and threatening the people to give bytes for cooking up stories.

But this incident in which a girl had alleged her uncle of rape, the media intrusion hurt the couple so much that they committed suicide.

They could not bear that the allegation of their niece made would be taken so seriously by media that it would conduct its own trial.

The person was probably sexually incapable to commit any such crime and this further hurt him.

Time now for these channels to behave and reign in on their reporters. Else, as we had predicted initially, the day is not far when reporters would be hunted and hit whereever they would go.