Proud of Security Forces, Ashamed of the Media

In all the tragedy unfolding over the last <> 48 hours and 3 mins, there is this inescapable, extremely irritating Indian TV NEws Channel which if it had not been dangerous could have been dubbed as farce.

The 24x7 media and all its actors have no sense of proportion, perspective or even shame. If the terror attack on Wednesday exposed India, for the first time (?) since 13/12 vulnerability to identified, unrestrained attacks, it exposed -once again -the hollowness and the frivolity of the Indian news electronic media.

The 24x7 media believes we, the viewers want to know the number of bullets shot, as it is being shot (Wrong ,we dont) that we the viewers, would rather hold our breath when the correspondent thinks up of something to say in between his "aa", " you see", "actually" and "absolutely"s ( Wrong, we would much rather have you read prepared text than ad lib, Thank you) , that we the viewers are fools ( Please, all of us are not fools all the time) and we the viewers will brook no criticism of the media themselves.(Wrong, again)

Sample this:
Ashok Mehta, visibily a retired Army officer, is a guest on Arnab Goswami's TIMES-NOW. Mr. Mehta, ".. This is probably the first commando operation, anywhere in the world, of this magnitude which has been telecast live for 48 hours..."
Arnab ( attempting to interrupt), Umm... er..

Mr. Mehta, "...the Fidayeen squad could not have asked for more. Their purpose was to get the message across and this is exactly what a prolonged televised attack did..."
Arnab, ( attempting to interrupt), " er...Absolutely.. now" ( Notice how 'absolutely' is a useful word for interruptions or time fillers)
Mr. Mehta, "...For the Fidayeen ..Lashkar-e-Taiba or anyone else this project is a grand success"
Arnab (defensive, looking for solace turns to the other panellist), " Surely, we must have a sense of persperctive. Mr so-n-so, what are your comments".
Mr. So-n-so, "For the terrorist, is essential to get their message across"
Now Arnab gets defensive, interrupts " Now is not the time to shoot the messenger, Now is the time to show respect to armed forces. Lets us go across to - (that hapless chap)--Rahul Shivshankar who is with Maj Gen So-n-So speaking exclusively to Times Now." The reality - MajGen was neither speaking nor was it exclusive. He had been accosted on his way out and forced to utter a few words.
Switch to NDTV, the Big Daddy of 24 hours new ,Prannoy Roy ( Big Dhadi, as my grandpa would say) calls"over to Mumbai". Barkha Dutt is on the phone line with a person whose wife is missing for 48 hours. Barkha, ( with such an empathetic voice and face that would put a theatre artist to shame), Mr Saikia, " Your wife is missing for the last 48 hours, It was only 24 hours ago that you had been mentioning that she is missing for 24 hours. How do you feel about it. Is she still missing ?" (bah! Please,Ms Dutt, you would have displayed genuine senstitivity but letting the man alone).

Next, Barkha Dutt (a congenital victim of hyperbole and hand-synchronised animation has a rather unusual guest to interview - Harsha Bhogle. She begins," Harsha, One of the worst attacks, Mumbai is resilent to overcome, is it not"
Harsha -" I am tired of Mumbai being referred as resilient. Why should we be resilient. We do not have to be. Why should innocent lives be lost."
Barkha ( not expecting this reply), "Absolutely. Prannoy, I know you are waiting to ask a question to Harsha. Go Ahead"
Prannoy, (not at all waiting to ask a question rambles) " Harsha is a good friend, we go back a long way. He is so widely travelled. Harsha, Being so widely travelled ( now he has thought up of a question- extempore), what do you think is the significance of this attack on India? " Bah !

Further more, The Breaking news ticker on the newschannels were confusing rather than informing reading..
" Gunbattle ends" and "Fierce Battle On" alternatively.
"Taj Mahal under siege" ( Surely nothing is happening in Agra, is there?)
"More explosions"
"War Rages on" ( Er.. if war rages on, is that a 'breaking news')

And in spite of all this, they still cant get over Bollywood, and hence we have Rahul Bose, Sanjana Kapoor, Mukesh Bhat giving expert opinion on what the government must be doing.

All of the above is everyday affair can be tolerated and we, the viewers,do that, if it had not been for the fact that the live coverage provided by reporters "risking their lives" ( for the record, we the viewers did not ask them to do so) had actually risked the lives of the hostages and the armed forces - by compromising the positions, timings, and other details of the security forces.

Watch this- Al Jazeera English's Listening Post covers the Indian Media coverage of Mumbai Massacre

NDTV, CNN-IBN, Times Now Accused of abetting Mumbai Terror Attack

Whether the terrorists are foreigners are not, whether they received local assitance or not is yet to be answered, 24 hour News Channel like NDTV, CNN-IBN, Times Now and Headlines Today are clearly assisting the terrorists.

This morning the news channels beamed live footage of NSG commandos being airdropped on the attacked building. Any terrorist inside the building had the enormous advantage of knowing how many commandos were entering and from which position. This was a very specific example. Right from announcing when NSG forces arrived to the number of security forces, the news channels are doing all, in utmost competitive vigour, that they can to keep updated the terrorists inside the attacked building and their accomplices in the outside world with whom the attackers might have possibly maintained contact telephonic contact. Earlier, they had telecast specific footage of crouching commandos up on the Gateway of India providing additional cover in case the fight spills over to balconies or terraces.

The sheer pressure for eye-balls and rivalry amongst news channels is sabotaging the already fragile national security scene. It took all of 40 hours since the first pictures for the Army to 'request' news channels to not beam live pictures. A more powerful government would have ordered the eviction of reporters out of camera range. Anyways that was request was not particulary followed

News Channels have their utility, during times of Emergency, of sending messages about the hurt, the missing and the stranded. If the government is botching up the operations, sure, the people deserve to know, but not like running commentary .

Even if the capture of the attackers is delayed by as much as a minute on account of the advantage that the news channels give them, the news channels are playing an anti-national, pro-terrorist role ( even during peace time, this writer is of the view that several news anchors play a divisive anti-national role)

Is the government so weak that they cannot control media in times like these ?