Shouldn't hysteric TV channels be restrained from rousing sentiments?

The beheading of two soldiers was one of the most shocking story but in reporting this TV channels seemed to have just a single focus: high TRPs through high-pitched debates which sounded like war cries.

Killing the soldiers was an extremely horrific act. The nation was in grief and shock. But no less horrific was Naxalites' act almost at the same time, killing 12 CRPF jawans barbarically and even cutting the stomach of a soldier to insert a bomb inside the corpse.

This incident occurred in Latehar in Jharkhand. How much time did the channels dedicated to Naxal issue? But in reporting the Indo-Pak LoC conflict, TV channels clearly went overboard. If Pakistani army did it, it was shameful, said even Pakistani officials including Gen Pervez Musharraf.

But for channels, not just the 'hostile neighbouring army' but entire Pakistan and its people had to be painted as an enemy. There was no journalism, no attempt to show the other side of the picture and there was no concern whatsoever that this region can't afford to go for a war.

For them, it's just a war for TRPs. The more you shout, yell and turn the opponent into a monster, the more viewers you will get. Our claim is correct, fine. But other party's claim can't be reported because it is 'un-patriotic'. This is not journalism. This is not nationalism either.

Indian Army has followed a great tradition and has a history of successfully dealing with all sorts of situations. They can very well counter all situations. TV channels should realize that there are strategic issues involved and everything shouldn't brought to this level.

Media can change public opinion and this it must act very responsible. When TV channels' anchors become judgmental, they influence the public and instead of clearing a picture, often distort it further. This is simply disgusting. But will our TV channels ever learn it?

Media's role during Mumbai terrorist attack: Looking for TRP in a Tragedy

Indian media failed to rise to the occasion once again. It was a tragedy that unfolded in Mumbai for 48 hrs but channels didn't appear sombre and regulated.

Instead, they were over-excited and showing everything as if it was a 'live war reporting' though wars aren't reported in this manner either.

There were alerts, flashes, scrawls and breaking new for 50 hrs. The aim was to grab eyeballs. Ads were not shown as the viewer could switch to other channel in the meantime.

The news channels wanted highest TRP in this troubled times, so that they can later demand higher rates for advertisements and stay up on chart.

Much will be discussed in the coming days whether it was prudent to show the positions of police, commandos and officials in the initial stage of encounter in Taj Hotel that left officers, ATS chief Hemant Karkare and others dead.

Celebrity reporters' questionable conduct

Worst was the conduct of the so-called celebrity reporters who wanted their cameramen to zoom on everything as they lay on the ground. A star reporter-cum-anchor spoke lying on the ground to create the impact that he was reporting from warzone.

Others were not sure how to be on the ground and either grotesquely prostrated themselves or laid down on their back or side. The same anchor was drunk when he first appeared in the first hour of the tragedy.

The slur was visible and he was cut short. He later re-appeared on Thursday morning. In the end, all these channels together made a tamasha of the tragedy and served it to audience as if it was any other tamasha.

Where on earth the reporters are allowed to mob such a site? The government also woke up very late and by the time the TV channels stopping showing 'live' [7 pm on Friday], it was already too late. But our electronic media made a mockery of itself.

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?

Circus over Abhishek-Aishwarya marriage in media and Jahnavi Kapoor

The Media Madness over Abhishek-Aishwarya marriage has broke all previous records and most channels lost all sense of propriety.

They were not allowed entry or even given a place to set there cameras but still the reporters had no sense of propriety.

They didn't feel any hesitation in repeating in front of cameras that they were not invited and still they were stationed outside and trying for a view.

Sharam bhi nahin aati! The Bachchans, especially Amitabh, must share the blame.

At the time of a film release they go for all sorts of PR activities and run from channel to channel for interviews and pre-release coverage. But when it came to his son's marriage they kept it a family affair.

The electronic media found the much needed spice in model-starlet Jahnavi Kapoor alias Haya alias Naina Rizvi, who was earlier daughter-in-law of renowned Shia cleric Kalb-e-Sadiq, when attempted suicide in front of Amitabh Bachchan's house and claimed that she was Abhishek's wife.

We don't know what it was. May be it was all fixed and a media man gave her the idea to get famous instantly. Was it a publicity stunt or she is really mad and believes it (psychological illness).

But TV channels picked up the news and she was hopping from studio to studio the same day. And by evening she got so buoyed that she again visited the place and was arrested.

'Abhishek ne meri maang bhari hai', said Jahnvi, repeatedly on channels even as her friends and acquaintances termed her as a drug addict, drunkard and even a 'pick up'. She made wild unsubstantiated claims and TV channels thrived on them for their TRPs. On phone her mother Shahina Agha said that if she has changed her religion, she will disown her duaghter.

Jahnavi Kapur maintained that she didn't marry Kalb-e-Sadik's son and instead it was her sister who married the cleric's son. Meanwhile, suspense remained over her identity, was she a Kashmiri or a Lucknow girl.

Agha Nasir Ali who lives in Kashmir told media that he had married a divorcee doctor woman from Lucknow, who had four daughters from her earlier marriage. Two of them shifted to Kashmir while the other two were raised in Lucknow. Jahnavi was brought up in Lucknow.

She has worked as junior artists in some movies and danced with Abishek in Dus. Naina Rizvi alias Jahnavi had married one, Husain, of Lucknow and gave birth to a son. Her mother Shaheena said that Naina told her about her 'affair' with Abhishek. 

Though it may not affect the marriage at all, but section of electronic media surely took delight in airing this story and took revenge upon the Bacchan's family on the very day of marriage.

Though, the marriage was solemnised properly, and it was happy ending, the Jahnavi episode surely brought a Bollywood twist to the wedding.

Abduction drama: A leftist cynic's thoughts & media coverage

The abduction of Adobe CEO Naresh Gupta's son Anant and the subsequent recovery of the kid was extensively covered in the media.

Can we blame our news channels? After all, it had all the ingredients of a good story. It was the son of a rich man who was kidnapped and in Noida (that happens to be in Uttar Pradesh). One might say that hundreds of children are abdcuted every week in this vast country and none of them gets so much coverage (and in turn media attention).

But the victim has to be in the right place (around Delhi) and belonging to the right family (son of beneficiary of a post-liberalisation era) to get the sort of media coverage that results in police swiftness and action at the government level.

Mercifuly, the kid was safely recovered. Then another surprise awaited us. We were shown the recorded telephonic conversation of Anant's mother with the abductors. Gupta seemed to have sought help of a person expert in tackling abduction cases. With all chutzpah the CEO narrated his own smartness and techno-savvy style.
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Now what a cynic said:

'Nobody is safe, see the car and bodyguards couldn't stop the abduction of the child', said a leftist in a conversation at coffee house.

He further said, 'Earning millions and stashing them in foreign banks you can't think that you are insulated from the rest of Indians'. And then added, 'When you don't give quality education to poor and of course no health facilities, can they ever compete the elite...no....they will become criminals....the elite who don't want to share will have to pay for it....at least the families of many people and that's at least a distribution of wealth....the families of those working for kingpins would at least get a share in such ransoms.....blah blah blah....

I don't have much to say personally. Every life is as important and if his father happens to be rich, it doesn't mean that anybody should have bias against him. But yes, the growing cost of education and the gulf between the lower class and the upper class has widened so much that unless urgent measures are taken to redress that gulf, the society would witness extreme chaos and such crimes as route to earn fast buck.