December 12, 2008: Who is to blame for media hysteria - journalists or viewers?

Who Should Take the Blame For Media Hysteria?

We posed that question to a panel of 10 speakers at our very first event organised in association with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a German non-profit agency devoted to the promotion of free speech, among other democratic values. The venue was the Press Club of India and the date, the 12^th of December, 2008.

We had under-estimated the response. The Hall could barely accomodate 80 people, we had over a hundred packed in, not counting those free birds who could not take in the crush. Madhu Trehan, President of the Foundation set the ball rolling. She said the Mumbai terror attacks were unprecedented, the government had not set any rules, nor had the security forces. The media will try to get a good story whichever way they can. On the other hand mistakes were made and these might have endangered lives. TV ratings suggest that those that were the most hysterical got the most attention. But the danger is that if the public outcry is loud and continuous we will be giving the government the tools to restrict us to the extent that we will only have door ka darshan! This will open the door for the government to do the usual cover-up, resort to lies when things go wrong. We will be muzzling the watchdog.

There are strict rules for media coverage of terror attacks in UK, USA, Canada, Byelorussia, Russia.. What kind of rules should we have? Should there be delayed broadcasts with time and date imprinted, so that people do not mistake repeats for live footage? Would other countries have allowed a terrorist to go live on TV? Did pictures of commandos being dropped on Nariman House give the game away? Was the coverage class-biased? Would the terrorists do as much as they did if we gave them no coverage? Can there be objectivity in reporting on terrorism – can there be another side to it?

The panelists were: Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN, film-maker Mahesh Bhatt, retired police officer Julio Ribeiro, Mid-day group editorial director Shishir Joshi, columnist Saeed Naqvi, journalist Anil Dharker, Outlook editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta, social activist Medha Patkar, Tehelka’s editor-at-large Ajit Sahi and sociologist Dipanker Gupta.

A summary of views follows.

No Difference Between News And Entertainment:

Film maker Mahesh Bhatt

I always knew that the line between news and entertainment was getting blurred, but I did not know that the electronic news medium could be taken over by experts from my field. It used tricks used by my trade to whip up emotions. I have been crusading for freedom of speech and expression but when you see journalism gravitate to ground zero, one must become its worst critic and prevent it from sliding into the abyss. There is a danger that we might have come to that point.

When Bollywood made Ghadar (a 2001 movie about a Partition-time romance, starring Sunny Deol, Amisha Patel and Amrish Puri), it was accused of jingoism and almost every channel that we went to, almost every self-righteous anchor asked us how we could create stereotypes and batter our neighbour.

One looked for some kind of restraint but did not find any. I understand that it is possible for people to lose perspective in times like these. But it is precisely the reason why ordinary people switch to news channels. From the moment these guys started using background music, one knew they were in the entertainment business. The question is, if everybody is going to entertain, who is going to give news?

I remember a person who came from across the border after the attacks, Mr Ansar Burney (former Pakistan Human Rights Minister). He came to give blood at J J Hospital (in Mumbai) and I called up everybody in the news media to see that the gesture was reported. Apart from the Hindustan Times no one bothered. I knew that demonising the neighbour was selling and any news, even an isolated piece of a brave man daring to stand up against his own people, did not sell. I personally was disappointed by what I saw. I was looking for perspective, which I did not get. It only got worse with the passage of time.

The breaking-news syndrome seemed to have taken over. Within hours, we have rumours making headlines. For instance, somebody passed on the news that there was firing at J W Marriott in Mumbai. Nobody authenticated it. The cops that I called up said they did not know where the media was getting the news. In fact the electronic media became part of the problem, not part of helping us comprehend or deal with the situation.

This high moral ground that we news peddlers are different from you entertainers, we are better than the Ram Gopal Varmas who go there (Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had to step down, following a public outcry after he went to see the devastation at the Taj in the company of the film-maker) with purely business intentions…. how are you guys different? You also ultimately package news and sell it. So stop taking that moral high ground because people are not so foolish. You are in the same money-making game like anybody else!

If Editors Report Who Will Mind The Shop?:

Outlook Group’s Editor-in-Chief Vinod Mehta

I am embarrassed being here (at the Press Club) in the capacity of a critic because I am a journalist and we are looking at the work of other journalists and to that extent any pontification or sermonising seems to be a bit off because I am pontificating to fellow journalists.

Having established my credentials, that I am a critic with my heart on the right side, if I criticize the media I am also criticizing myself. I think there is no better place than the Press Club for hosting this kind of a seminar.

I think the problem is the following: this time the outrage and complaints are not coming from the government or the courts but from the public which has hitherto been very supportive of the electronic media. The big danger is that at least for the past two years we have kept the barbarians at the gate. We have kept the politicians out and to some extent the Supreme Court out. Both these institutions were scared because the media had public support. But this time, if these institutions which have the capacity to legislate and give us a code of conduct are backed by the public then there would be a serious problem because we would have lost support from our most vocal and important constituency. Therefore it is in our own interest that we should worry so much about keeping this constituency on our side.

The proposition has been put whether viewership was responsible for the hysteria, or the editors of the channels. I may be in a minority, but I have always said that if viewers dictate what should appear on the channels, or readers dictate what should appear in Outlook, my proprietors should fire me. Viewers can never dictate. There is a full theory which we could put forward to justify pandering to our viewers, in which case, why do we have editors?

The competition argument cannot be an excuse for doing wrong things. We are also told that it is the nature of the beast, that 24-hour channels need to be fed with news all the time. I see international channels. They cover 10 times bigger emergencies, catastrophes. There is no panic there. The anchors are not jumping as if someone has shoved their bottom! There is a certain calm. This kind of self-generated hysteria, which you then pass on to the audience and you expect them not to exaggerate that hysteria to the point of 10? Why is this being done? It is being done for TRPs (TV rating points).

A disturbing thing that I as a print journalist find is editors becoming reporters. When that happens, who is minding the shop? I think it is completely unprofessional and wrong. If there is a big story, I do not go out with my tape recorder, I leave it to the reporters. Editors must do an editor’s job and reporters must be reporters.

Many Positive Unintended Consequences:

Sociologist Dipanker Gupta

Like Vinod, I hope my heart is also in the right place, but because I am from JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) perhaps it is in the left. I think we are a little uncharitable to the media because there is something called unintended consequences. The intended consequences we know: they wanted higher TRPs, they wanted to be more hysterical than the rest, hyperventilation was on the agenda.

The unintended consequence was that we saw the vulnerable people out there and thought how different we are from the Z security-protected politicians. And the revulsion against politicians grew with each passing minute. And this revulsion would not have come if you had a government spokesman giving news from time to time. The revulsion came because you saw it so much in your face. Which is why we have an outpouring of political enthusiasm from people who in a way never expected to do anything political in their lives.

The other unintended consequence was that we saw Hindus and Muslims dying. And this led to a new recognition that we will not let this incident to be worked up politically. If there is one dog that did not wag its tail it was the saffron politician. Pakistan-bashing has not worked back into our society and deepen the chasm between the two communities.

The other unintended consequence of our media being so vocal was that it showed us clearly how sloppy our administrative, police and fire forces are. Here you have people trying on bullet-proof jackets and helmets for size (while in the line of fire). You do not do that. You should have your own kit. We also saw the BEST bus bring commandoes from the airport. These are things we saw, nobody told us. If we had government spokesmen filtering all the news you would never have seen this.

I think there was some amount of jingoism. Fortunately, that did not take off. Very often, we had things like our brave soldiers are marching in, and our people are going to do their best and our armed forces are our heroes… it stopped us in our tracks in terms of looking at their deficiencies objectively. Strategy experts point the finger at Pakistan and rightly so. But they should also point the finger to problems within. Tagore said that Satan will come in only when there is a flaw.

We know that the Satan is out there. There is no point in pointing fingers at Satan and saying we know that you are there and how terrible you look. The fact is why does Satan find it easy to come in through the cracks and haunt us? That is one aspect where the media unintentionally protected the administration and officials from close scrutiny. Otherwise, I would say that on the whole, the unintended consequences of the media were positive.

Today, all over the country, we have Muslim organisations, Muslim stars, ordinary people, Munna Chaiwala, all speaking out against the Jihadis. All the imams, All India Muslim Personal Law Board… a major Muslim organisation said these terrorists should not be buried according to Islamic rites in the kabristan of Bombay Marine Lines. These are some of the positive outcomes.

The Electronic Media Behaved:

Former police chief Julio Ribeiro

“I thought the media had gone overboard in reporting the Aarushi murder case (a school girl murdered in Noida, near Delhi, in May 2008), but in this case everybody in Mumbai wanted to know what was happening. I do not think the terrorists would have spared people trapped in the hotels if TV channels had not shown them. I think the electronic media was within limits. In fact, I went to the Taj Mahal (hotel) and we were at quite a distance, and the TV channels also obeyed the instructions that were given them. I do not think I would blame them for it, and I do not think anybody in Bombay would say they were responsible for this (for endangering lives. Ribeiro clarified that his view was based on feedback from people in the slums, where he works at getting communities together).”

(Ribeiro said that when he put on the TV on the night of the attacks, he had mistaken them for a gang war, as Leopold Cafe, a scene of action, is known to be a place were drugs are peddled. As for the charge of sloppiness made by Dipankar Gupta, he said, a lot of policemen had come to the Taj Hotel quickly, but they did not know what was happening. Slain police officer Hemant Karkare was trying on bullet-proof vests for size because there are not enough to go around and policemen do not usually wear them. He also disagreed with people who said that the police should be equipped with deadly weapons like AK 47s. “It is an assault rifle,” he said. “I would not want to be around if a policemen has an AK 47.”)

Ribeiro said he had spoken to the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and urged them to “take hold of this occasion, because this is one occasion when we can turn the tide against terrorism. The Muslim mind is now totally against what happened. They are all worked up just like the others.”

Ribeiro recalled that upon returning in 1994 from Romania (where he had been posted as ambassador, after leading Punjab police in the fight against Sikh terrorism), there was a sneaking appreciation (among Muslims) of what Dawood had done (engineered the Bombay blasts to reportedly avenge the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Bombay riots).

“ I work in the slums, that is the difference between my friend Anil (Dharker) and myself, when he said that people were against what the media did. But the people with whom I work were not. I gave the example (to the PM and the CM) that when the Sikh Jat farmer turned against terrorism, it stopped. When there is no support for terrorism from the community, it will stop. I think people will take advantage of this and get the politicians to behave themselves. I have also told the CM that we must stop corruption, that these transfers down to the constable level create a pipeline of corruption, because transfers are sought to posts that are lucrative and these guys do not report to their superiors but to the politicians as they know that they are protected.”

The Story Was So Big It Could Not Be Exaggerated:

CNN IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai

This entire debate has become one between print vs television, that print is oh! so sober and responsible, while television is so terrible and yet everybody watches it. I hope that we are all on the same side.

Did TV spread panic? I do not think so. Barring one occasion, and I hold myself guilty, when on the second day, on Friday (28^th November), we reported that there was firing at CST railway station and at the Reserve Bank. I was in the studio that day and I apologised six times on air. One of our reporters was at CST when a gun went off, there were people running around, and we said there was firing. Because one channel said it, two or three other channels followed. That is the troubling aspect. That is where filters are breaking down. And I accept that is where we need to bring in a better protocol. Because we look over our shoulder to see what other channels are doing, we forget what we are supposed to do.

The problem is accentuated among Hindi channels because they are acutely competitive and hence this urge to constantly put out breaking news. Frankly, in those 60 hours there was nothing that I would classify as exclusive. The information was coming often from a single source, which was not even official.

One of the problems was terrible information flow. Nowhere do you have a situation where marine commandos come and give detailed descriptions, the NSG (National Security Guard) commander gives a press conference, which is clearly chaotic. You have a Chief Minister (Vilasrao Deshmukh) who tells me on Day One that there are 25 terrorists, on record, when asked twice. Am I not to go by his view? And the Deputy Chief Minister (R R Patil) seconds that.

Barring the CST incident, I do not think TV channels created panic. People were reassured by the fact that they could see images. Deepak Bagla, one of the survivors, who was in a hotel room in The Oberoi, said as long as the TVs were on and they were getting access till Friday morning, he felt reassured that all was well. The moment TV screens blanked out, he got scared.

Should we have delayed broadcasts with date and time printed on them? I have a different view. Keep the media away. Keep us 500 metres away. But you cannot allow us close and say this is media hysteria. If the media had been told not to show commandos landing on Nariman House, it would have obeyed. You cannot have an information overdose, just as you cannot have an information vacuum.

My suggestion is like a medical bulletin, have a room nicely done with the insignia of the government (as a backdrop), not a 20×20 foot room with 80 journalists where the Mumbai police commissioner had his press conference, which descended into chaos. Have it four times a day.

People say we compromised operational details. The irony is we knew nothing of the operational details, so we could not compromise them! Most of what was being said was gibberish.

Now look at the government’s advisory. Gateway of India protests are going on. The government says channels should not show them because that will create an anti-politician mood in the country. What is going on? Citizens see TV as empowering them. It can create jingoism but it can also be a unifying factor.

Most journalists stand on the right side on these issues, they stand on the side of the victim nine times out of ten. Yes, there will be aberrations. Look at the headlines in Mumbai newspapers on (the arrested terrorist Ajmal Amir) Kasab’s interrogation. Each one is a planted story. Has it not been picked up by newspapers? Do we have any wholesome debate on that? Where are the filters in newspapers?

There is good TV and bad TV. What I find objectionable is that there are blanket statements being made about TV in general. There are any number of calm, reassuring voices in the Indian electronic media as well.

I do not think this was a race for TRPs. Every journalist wanted to be part of the big story. But I am sorry to say this, I sometime sense a note of envy. Part of this battle is about envy: the big journalists get to be in the big places. That is not the intention. The basic intention is that it is part of a good story.

We are accused of sensationalising. Sensationalising what? This was the biggest terror attack in terms of its audacity, it goes on for 60 hours. We are a 24×7 medium, we cannot get off the story. Did we exaggerate? I do not think so. Did we cover Oberoi to the exclusion of Chhatrapati Shivaji? No, because it is the same argument about Godhra (train burning) and Gujarat riots (in 2002). Godhra was a one-hour incident. The riots went on for days. Same thing happened at CST. It ended on Wednesday (26/11) night. Taj and Oberoi continued till Saturday.

As for class bias, please see the coverage after the event. We went to CST, the hospitals, we did the trauma stories.

I do not think the media was jingoistic. In a strange way, it has empowered citizens to come to the Gateway of India and say what they want. We offer a mirror good, bad or ugly to whatever is happening in society. This is where filters come in, self-regulation comes in. It is not about delayed broadcast. It is about greater editorial restraint.

Out of 60 hours, I spent one hour in the field, not for any other reason, but I felt it was easier to be in the studio and get that bit of distance than actually be there. That was an individual decision that I took. It is very tempting to be out there, but please understand, that we are a prisoner of a format, the 24-hour channel needs to be fed all the time. If there were editors who were out in the field, may be those channels saw that as a way of identifying the story with the editor. Look at it from the channel’s point of view. If I sent a 25-year-old reporter who is talented versus an editor who is 40-year-old, you would want to watch the editor because you believe the editor is someone who you know and can identify with. I do not speak for everyone but I know where a channel is coming from when it sends a senior editor to the field. It happens across the world. Some of us felt we should be in the studio and direct operations. But both are equally valid propositions. I do not think a channel failed because its editor was out in the field. That is a problem of the filtration that happens in the overall 24-hour cycle.

In our desire for the screen to be constantly buzzing, we want the rhetoric to he high-pitched. That is what we need to rethink. Every small thing cannot be exaggerated. The terror attack was a big event. But if a bomb is found or suspected somewhere, immediately it is shown on TV as breaking news, it is blown up, that is where our editorial filters must come in.

We (the government and the media) are in the process of setting up an emergency protocol. Hopefully it will work. I do not know whether all channels will follow it. Some channels are breeding a right-wing society. Are we willing to reject those channels? I do not think so.

Forget what happened on 26/11. See what happened in the Harbhajan Vs Symonds controversy. Across the media, Harbhajan became a symbol of Indian nationalism. We are in our own way breeding a jingoistic society – not consciously – but you have a certain section of society moving in that direction. We have to decide - do we cater to the baser instincts of society or do we raise the bar?