Mumbai terror attacks by media

This is one of the rare occasions when our team writes something serious, and unfortunately this is again a tragic occasion.

Our readers must have been watching television news for most of the day to get latest updates on the terrorist strikes in Mumbai, which started on Wednesday night and continued even as we write this (9.30 PM, Thursday) completing 24 hours when the first shootout was reported in Mumbai.

And I’m sure our readers not only got latest updates, they would have got to see latest ‘LIVE AND EXCLUSIVE’ videos and pictures on most of the news channels. The channels surely did a good job at getting news and information, whatever the source was, fast.

And the terrorists inside the hotels must have deputed one person to keep track of news reports to track movements of the security personnel and the army, and to finalize strategies to attack them.

Journalist friends of our team inform us that Home Ministry had called up editorial heads of news channels to direct them to stop reporting about deployment and movement of security agencies as it could compromise their safety, but the channels had some ‘internal resistance’ as they thought compliance with Ministry’s advices would compromise their ‘LIVE AND EXCLUSIVE’ status and TRPs.

But we watch the ‘LIVE AND EXCLUSIVE’ things and give them the TRPs. Maybe there should be an option of negative TRPs, just like we want negative vote in our electoral process.

Anyway, many of you couldn’t have slept and kept watching television (and improving TRPs) as the situation was so glum and depressing. And even if you had napped for a while, I guess you were shaken out of your slumber by our television anchors who hollered when smoke billowed out of Taj Hotel, as if a freak goal in football was scored or as if an accident in F1 race had taken place.

They also hollered to declare that it was 9/11 of India. Even a CIA official on CNN called it the same. In fact, foreign media, especially CNN and BBC, were talking all day about the terror strikes, even though it took some hours before CNN could convince their conscious that they should address the ‘gunmen’ as ‘terrorists’.

Yeah, indeed, it was 9/11 of India. But what did CNN do when 9/11 happened? They didn’t try to show ‘LIVE AND EXCLUSIVE’ rescue action, and they didn’t invade ground zero. Clearly Indian media could have learnt that. Hope they learn.

But they seemed to do one thing that CNN did when 9/11 happened. They didn’t take commercial breaks all night yesterday and till today’s morning. CNN had not taken commercial breaks for more than three days, perhaps for a week; correct us if we are wrong. Instead, CNN was showing messages of “we will not forget” and other messages of unity and reassurance during breaks between news bulletins. Our team thought our India media could at least match this aspect.

But we were wrong. Starting today afternoon, every channel, even the ones who exercised better editorial discretion (and ‘incidentally’ they were all English news channels), were showing advertisements of Chocolate Man, A monkey fond of wearing vests and underwear, slim sanitary napkins for women, and many other creative advertisements. And yeah, advertisements to vote for either BJP or Congress.

One of our pessimistic team member thought they didn’t take commercial break all night as those advertisement slots are anyway either not booked or realize low revenues, as there are very low TRPs of news channels in the night. Well, we don’t know what the reason was. Our journalist friends in news channels also don’t know.

Some of you might argue that after all news channels are in business, how can we expect them to not earn? Very true. We are not asking them to run in losses. We are not asking them to drop commercial advertisements with each terrorist strike as they seem to be routine now. But we believe that they could have taken such a decision this time as it was a rare occasion. They themselves called it 9/11 of India, everyday is not 9/11.

What would it have cost them? Just a 0.55% dip in the revenues for not showing advertisements for 2 days out of 365 days. Instead of each 100 rupees, they would have earned 99.45 rupees.

Such a big price to pay to show respect for the deaths of innocent people, in deference to sanity, in favor of wining credibility and support of people? Clearly the priorities lie elsewhere.

Anyway, we might be overreacting (are we?). But what explains the rationale behind India TV’s decision to broadcast a phone call by an alleged terrorist LIVE AND EXCLUSIVE?

The voice, listened to by millions all over India and abroad, claimed that the “Muslims of India would be proud of this act. Muslims of India are feeling relaxed and satisfied at their heart for this. Allah is with us and we’ll strike again” and similar messages.

And this audio clip was played again and again. Unedited, unrestrained, and unexplained. And a CNN reporter from Mumbai told his studio in Atlanta that some parts of India were feeling communal tensions and there could be communal riots.

India TV proudly claimed – आतंकवादी इंडिया टीवी देख रहे हैं – Terrorists Are Watching India TV. Poetic!

Lord, forgive them as they don’t know what they are doing.