TELEPROMPT
No focus on security lapses
Mannika Chopra

By the time you read this you will have been exposed to the round-the-clock coverage of the first anniversary of 26/11. Each news channel has puts its weight behind remembering the horrendous events either by encapsulating them through the tears of those who have been left to mourn (Lest We Forget/CNN-IBN, and Zindagi Live/IBN 7), recalling and recounting the nearly three days of terror (59 Ghante, 59 Minutes/Aaj Tak; 60 hours/ NDTV and News 24, and 62 Hours/ Times Now), or by simply reporting the assorted commiseration ceremonies (Doordarshan).

But with the one year anniversary upon us, it is fitting to ask whether television news did justice to the terror attacks which caused the death of over a 100 people in south Mumbai. Most of the reportage has been an example of imitation journalism with an almost predictable linear coverage of the 26/11 carnage. No serious new element appeared in the assorted reports which focussed largely on how the numerous grieving families were coping. News channels gave only a cursory look at the inadequate system, and at the same time provided a peek into the inevitable blame game which was still taking place in the state police force.

Most of the reportage has been an example of imitation journalism with an almost predictable coverage of the 26/11 carnage

As far the emotional element was concerned, the interactions on IBN 7 in its weekly slot Zindagi Live with the victims’ families were particularly poignant. It was simply heart rending to see Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan's father point out how even one year later the National Security Guards had not even bothered to build some kind of memorial monument to his son, the only member of the crack security force to have been killed so far in India in the line of duty.

Truly, you could feel his pain and that of his wife's when we heard how the Major's father, when he went to the Taj Hotel recently to see where his son had been felled, was met by a hotel executive who had no clue about a lad called Sandeep Unnikrishnan who had died while trying to protect the hotel and its residents.

It has taken only 364 days to blank out the bravery of a 31- year-old soldier; and that thought is bound to shake any viewer. Times Now used the occasion to relive the horror by having anchor/reporter Rahul Shivshankar efficiently rewind what went on those days. In between the field reporting, Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami gave us incendiary seminars, forgoing any attempts at neutrality. As you watched the similar type of coverage across the channels, you also wanted to see the 45-minute documentary, Terror in Mumbai, that was supposed to have been aired on HBO this week.

But, strangely, the channel refrained from televising it even though it had been slotted in its programme line-up. But still one managed to see it on the Internet, thanks to some enterprising webcaster. How Dan Reed, an award-winning director, managed to access footage of the only terrorist caught alive, Kasab, as he was being questioned on his hospital bed, is a bit of a puzzle. The tightly shot documentary, essentially a replay of events, was interspersed with the police interviewing Kasab.

Then there were the voiceovers of those handlers from across the border who were closely directing operations of the 10 terrorists as they tore a city apart. So what was missing in this episodic coverage provided to us collectively by news channels? Perhaps in assessing TV's coverage, one starting point could be to find out the purpose of such reportage. Was it simply to mark the tragedy and using tabloidish headings? To jolt the collective consciousness of the public for one day so that it can lie undisturbed for the remaining 364 days of the year submerged under innumerable stories on leaked commission reports and celebrity weddings?

One year later, wouldn't it have been fitting for the media to run a series on the gaps in the country's intelligence and security operations, to raise some red flags and to act as a pressure point on a complacent system? Sure, its unchartered territory, but such an approach would have underlined the difference between hype and news, and exposed the chinks in the national security system in a way the public could understand.