SIGHT & SOUND
Mindless media probing
Amita Malik

MEDIA buffs are familiar with the classic heroism of a BBC newscaster who watched a bomb come through the ceiling as he was reading the news during World War II. He went right on reading as if nothing had happened.

War is one thing. Everyday crisis is another. We in this country have our annual share of train accidents, air crashes, bomb blasts and road mishaps. By now, our media channels should have learnt to cope with them. But last week’s bomb blasts in two cinema halls in the Capital did little credit to our TV channels.

I shall give two typical examples. Zee News, ever on the prowl for sensationalisation of news, went to town, as usual. It dropped all scheduled programmes, kept on ramming in that it was first in everything and kept following the story for the rest of the evening. But how it covered the story is a different matter.

It had a highly nervous, obviously inexperienced girl on the spot in minutes, which is creditable. But she totally lost her nerve and kept on talking very fast, in a high-pitched voice and kept on repeating the meagre details. This is where the studio end intervened. It kept on asking silly questions, which neither the poor girl nor Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and the police were in a position to answer. So the studio decided to make up its own statistics. At one stage, Zee studio told us that five persons had been killed although everyone knows by now that only one person died. Zee’s figures for the injured also went wildly off the mark and kept on moving up and down.

In contrast, and also typical was the reaction of NDTV, which stoutly carries on with the scheduled programmes until it gets its reporters to the spot. It takes off, cautiously at first, almost irritatingly sedately, and then gives us authentic news, presented professionally by experienced reporters who keep their heads. In this instance, Aaj Tak and Headline News also kept their heads and Aaj Tak was ahead of NDTV with visuals.

Now, we come to the second instance of panic in news coverage. When the police, and other government officials directly dealing with the tragedy are obviously busy going about their jobs, the interviewers, especially those sitting cosily in the studios, keep on repeating questions the former are not in a position to answer. "Who is responsible for the blasts?" "How many people are critically injured?" "Was it a protest against the film?" The list of ridiculous queries goes on and on. Although the police and officials keep on saying they do not know as yet, the questioner, in an effort to get a scoop, keeps on repeating the same questions and prevents the police and others from doing their jobs. Media, at such times, behaves both
thoughtlessly and irresponsibly.

I admire the politeness with which officials cope with eager-beaver reporters. Experienced reporters, such as Anasuya Roy, keep their heads and their cool while reporting from the spot. They only give such facts as are available and the newscaster says facts will be given as soon as they come in. There is teamwork between the reporter on the spot and the newscaster and producer, so the viewer and the anxious relatives are not kept on tenterhooks.

At the time of writing, the French Open tennis from Paris is in full swing and what a pleasure to have Ten Sports give us professional coverage, without ads at the wrong moment and B-grade commentators. Such a refreshing change from Doordarshan. One is dreading the day when DD takes over the last stages of Wimbledon and sends us up a tree.