In the line of fire

Shashank Chouhan They were there. For 60 hours, sleep evaded them as one of the most critical moments on Indian territory unfolded. Sprawling on all fours, and sometimes on their bellies, as terrorists sprayed bullets and threw bombs at whoever came in their sight, they did not bat an eyelid or go on the back-foot. Just when a nation was boiling over with rage, they gave a platform for the madness to manifest in a civil way. With the NSG, the MarCos, the Army and ATS, they were there. Bringing shots of every bullet fired, every hostage rescued and every ‘enemy’ killed into our living rooms or desktops or newspapers, the media of this country rose to the occasion splendidly. Or did they? Is the role of media limited to getting the information or can it drum up emotions into a war like situation too? Can pitching for nationalism be at the cost of asking questions? These and a worse barrage of questions- did media get used by terrorists?- awaited the men with cameras once their equipment was turned off. It all began on a wrong note. When the news channels began ‘breaking news’ about shots being fired at various places in Mumbai, it was called gang-war. You read that right. What’s more, it ended with a wrong one too- they flashed on Nov 29 that Chattarapati Shivaji Terminus was under fire. It was a rumour, which created needless panic. Actually, there were two ‘wars’ that were being waged for those three days- one to regain control in Mumbai and the other to control the TRP ratings chart. Both were won. While the former cost us scores of lives, the latter may have helped in it, it is alleged. On the last day of Operation Thunderbolt, the Navy chief commented that the media had acted as a ‘disabling force.’ In placing his argument that media coverage was used by the masterminds in Karachi to employ strategy, he conveniently forgot that the same coverage was called ‘force-multiplier’ during Kargil. Operation Thunderbolt was a success, but some of the Navy chief’s thunder was stolen when media questioned him on not acting on available intelligence. Of course it was not ‘actionable’. Is the messenger being shot here or is it a part of the great Indian pass-the-buck game? Media being the ‘fourth estate’ can’t duck from its share of responsibilities towards the society. Problem begins when the race to ‘being there first’ takes over. Clearly the coverage could have been dignified even though the incident was anything but that. What happened in Mumbai was undoubtedly ‘sensational’ but all those click happy shutterbugs, those reporters taking it as their Kargil moment, those anchors drumming up jingoism, those socialites asking for non-cooperation movement, that belting out of ‘leaks’ without slightest verification were not the characters of a mature reportage. It wasn’t just the Indian media that got entangled in its own camera wires and got blinkered. The CNN broadcast details of where Lynne and Kenneth Shaw, who live in South Wales and were staying at the Taj when the violence began, were. The couple says the terrorists were listening in on the media to pinpoint Western victims. That leads one to believe that the terrorists ‘used’ media to their benefit. As soon as their carnage began, the cameras started rolling LIVE, the websites got updated with whatever they could get their hands on, social networking sites and SMS services like Twitter were flooded with personal accounts and mostly hearsay. So, even as the action was limited to three areas, panic spread throughout the world. It’s probably easy (looks like, at least) to get a couple of sophisticated guns and local bombs and target unsuspecting civilians. But it is certainly not easy to rattle the world through a single action of a few individuals- unless thousands are killed like in 9/11. Unwillingly, a massive push was given to terror agenda- whatever it is apart from terrorizing us- by the huge coverage that the Mumbai attacks received. The cowardly perpetrators of reckless violence in fact became sort of celebrities, courtesy the attention. The incident was turned into a spectacle for all to ogle at. Coming back to irresponsible statements and information being doled out during the siege, one cannot overlook the fact that this was the first of its kind incident that media covered. It did not have any guidelines from authorities, so no one can say it broke any rules. There was no information centre or authority to tell us what was exactly happening. So we did what we do best- transported you to the scene through pictures, description and text. Of course, it was not cricket that would require ball-by-ball analysis and there the media needs to learn. When the second airplane struck WTO tower, all that the anchor on CNN said was, ‘Oh my God.’ It did become commentary sometimes. “THERE WAS A BLAST,” a reporter shouted at the spot even as the visual captured it. There were descriptions given about the commando movements, about Army strategies, about helicopters being used and the number of men deployed. In a war the casualties are not given till the end of the operations. But we revealed early on that some of our top men had laid down their lives which must have given a psychological edge to everyone involved in that siege. One need not know all these details till the flush out was complete. The right to know should not be confused with the right to having a blow-by-blow account of action then and there. If it was a war, clearly we failed the information part of it. Even though it may have in the end shown the world the trauma India went through and that united us all. What else, the armed forces, which did a brilliant job, were in a kind of credit grabbing spree. On the second night of the operations, for instance, the Army declared the Taj complex “cleared” of terrorists that was to prove a false and expensive claim. A senior Army officer requested to be interviewed on the progress of operations by a leading English news channel. There were several top officers giving different information bits about the incident in a way that showed their actions to be working better vis-a-vis the others tackling the terrorists. Marcos held a press conference even as the fighting raged! One needs to understand that the media ‘reacted’ like an ordinary individual would to such a tragedy. With shock and pain. Although it would be wrong to say that it was the media which began pointing fingers at Pakistan- the first allegation came from the PM himself- it is true that they may have fanned public anger and roused a war cry. This is not how responsible and peace loving nations react- not without any evidence (at that time) or foresight. It led to counter-allegations from a section of Pakistan media about the whole incident being an India-US-Israel conspiracy to attack their country. Indian and world media called it India’s 9/11. No two incidents of gore and death should be compared, but here they were. Automatically, expectations arose that India should react like America did. India was and is angry and the media gave a vent. One can’t imagine what might have happened had the pressure valve not been there- riots, upheaval, civil war, who knows. At least now all that fuming is directed in a right direction. We are questioning those who were responsible for our security and we are urging for a solution like never before. And we won’t let the world forget till the perpetrators of this ghastly act are brought to justice. The tragedy in Mumbai has left lessons for everyone who cares, including the media. The press council and broadcasters’ association have promised to evolve guidelines for reporting such incidents. Of course the MPs are angry and have demanded action- they have been at the receiving end of the diatribe all this while. But at the end, it is sense that must prevail and not the sentiment. Media can no longer say we are too young, this is its time of reckoning.