Does our TV media needs a check?

Hi Andal

I also just commented on the integrity of the press in this thread (see copy below). I think it is a worrying factor and people are disturbed by it.

Neesha

Re: Serial Bomb Blasts and Firing in Mumbai
Hi Vmur

I was also watching NDTV here in South Africa and was wondering if 10 or 11 places were bombed why were they only sensationalizing the Taj. Perhaps for foreign interest?
I was also disturbed by the way the funerals were covered. I support free press but let these people go in dignity, don't have hundreds of cameras zooming in on their faces (for sure they may have had terrible injuries). The TV networks could have done more beneficial and proactive acts like posting queries from relatives, following up on missing persons things. They had a role to be helpful but they were only interested in the Taj, Oberoi and Nariman house and sensationalising the events.
I really don't see what's so award winning of Barkha Dutt and Srinivasan if they did not do anything innovative but gave in to run of the mill sensationalism.

Though I am not familiar with the governance and politics of the country, looking in from the outside I also noticed these cracks in the system. I can understand people's frustration and anger.

Regards Neesha

 

Hey Andal, I agree with u.These days TV channels think that they r being pro-active in providing the news to people.

I saw that one guy in NDTV interviewing a DGP on what his next plan wud.Come on..What is the DGP doing in his office when he is suppose to be on the spot?And doesn't the channel feel awkward for fixing an appoinment for an interview when the city is crying?

What are these guys trying to do?Are they not suppose to help the people?There were lotz of people with grief w/io proper commutation to hospitals.....They cud have atleast helped the police by lending their channel vehicles and channel people to take care of these injured people (of course with the help of police so that therz no fresh crime).

I personally wud say that if a media is "responsible" enuf they cud have acted better instead of troubling or disturbing the police and the NSG commandos...

Hope the mumbai blast is not "another one" and wud be forgotten as days pass by.We as people shud be more responsible and be more united to fight these situations.

 

hi andal,

TV channels definitely need a check...its really good that we are getting news upto date but its too much sometimes...just to make their channel more popular they even go with their cameras to disturb a normal human's privacy...when everyne was in agony and shock about the blast and attack and their loved ones being trapped inside...these people were constantly disturbing them to share their feeling...there is a time and limit for everything and news channels need to realise that....

kavi

 

I just came across this article on one of the sites.

This is one extract from a blog (and please note this is not only against Barkha Datt but all the news reporters who covered this tragic incident) –
Shoddy journalism

Appalling journalism. Absolute blasphemy! As I watch the news from home, I am dumbfounded to see Barkha Dutt of NDTV break every rule of ethical journalism in reporting the Mumbai mayhem. Take a couple of instances for example:

• In one instance she asks a husband about his wife being stuck, or held as a hostage. The poor guy adds in the end about where she was last hiding. Aired! My dear friends with AK-47s, our national news is helping you. Go get those still in. And be sure to thank NDTV for not censoring this bit of information.
• In another instance, a General sort of suggests that there were no hostages in Oberoi Trident. (Clever.) Then, our herione of revelations calls the head of Oberoi, and the idiot confirms a possibility of 100 or more people still in the building. Hello! Guys with guns, you've got more goats to slay. But before you do, you've got to love NDTV and more precisely Ms. Dutt. She's your official intelligence from Ground zero.

You do not need to be a journalist to understand the basic premise of ethics, which starts with protecting victims first; and that is done by avoiding key information from being aired publicly—such as but not limited to revealing the number of possible people still in, the hideouts of hostages and people stuck in buildings.
Imagine you're one of those sorry souls holed-up in one of those bathrooms, or kitchens. A journalist pulls your kin outside and asks about your last contact on national television, and other prying details. In a bout of emotion, if they happen to reveal more details, you are sure going to hell. Remember these are hotels, where in all likelihood, every room has a television. All a terrorist needs to do is listen to Ms. Barkha Dutt's latest achievement of extracting information from your relative, based on your last phone-call or SMS. And you're shafted—courtesy NDTV.1
If the terrorists don't manage to shove you in to your private hell, the journalists on national television will certainly help you get there. One of the criticisms about Barkha Dutt on Wikipedia reads thus:
During the Kargil conflict, Indian Army sources repeatedly complained to her channel that she was giving away locations in her broadcasts, thus causing Indian casualties.
Looks like the idiot journalist has not learnt anything since then. I join a number of bloggers pleading her to shut up.
Update: In fact, I am willing to believe that Hemant Karkare died because these channels showed him prepare (wear helmet, wear bullet-proof vest.) in excruciating detail live on television. And they in turn targeted him where he was unprotected. The brave officer succumbed to bullets in the neck.
Update 2 [28.Nov.2300hrs]: Better sense appears to have prevailed in the latter half of today—either willfully, or by Government coercion2, and Live broadcasts are now being limited to non-action zones. Telecast of action troops and strategy is now not being aired live. Thank goodness for that.
Update 3 [30.Nov.1900hrs]: DNA India reports about a UK couple ask media to report carefully:
The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on TV.
— Lynne Shaw in an interview.

1. Oh, they have a lame excuse pronouncing that the television connections in the hotel has been cut, and therefore it is okay to broadcast. Like hell! [←] The masterminds in the outside world might be watching the news and reporting the ones inside over the phone or something.
2. I'm thinking coercion, since Government has just denied renewing CNN's rights to air video today; must've have surely worked as a rude warning to the Indian domestic channels. [←]

Please sign the petition and forward it if you agree with it. Here's the link: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/indian-tv-news-reporters. If the petition gets more than 500 signatures, email will be sent to the following TV channels, so that they hear our voice:
CNN-IBN: editor@ibnlive.com
NDTV: feedback@ndtv.com
Zee News: inews@zeenetwork.com
Star News: csmail@startv.com
AajTak/Headlines Today: wecare@intoday.com
Times Now: info@timesnow.tv

 

Barkha Dutt, Srinivasan Jain and Rajdeep Sardesai all are worried about TRP's. They just need their channel to be on the top, the common people be damned.

In fact there is nothing different between the Politicians and the News Channel people. Politicians also want to make use of the ocassion for their narrow interests and so do these news channels.

 

How TV stars won the war


New Delhi Dec. 2: India’s best-known television journalists appear to have finally beaten Ekta Kapoor in the battle for TRPs. In six days flat. The all-out war witnessed editors being paradropped, reporters lying prostrate on the ground when not blaring into the cameras, and a thousand “breaking stories” every day. Here’s how the TRPs were garnered, shot by shot, starting around 10.30 pm on Wednesday, November 26:

* Close in on the woman in tears — show her from every possible angle
and deliver a soul-wrenching commentary of what might be going through her mind.

* Repeatedly flash shots of the adorable, crying child. Shove your mike in his face. Oh! hasn’t learnt to talk yet, not even Yiddish? Ask the woman carrying the child how she rescued him from the carnage. Not maudlin enough? Ask how many dead bodies she saw, get a blood question in. Ask if she was scared, ask what she was thinking while bullets were being sprayed around.

* Download all background scores of Ramsay and his brothers —especially Khooni Shikanja, Vehshi Aatma and Shaitan Khopri — and play it every time (that is at least 25 times a minute) pictures of the terrorists are flashed.

* Catch a victim. Chase him. If it’s a “her”, then your channel’s reputation depends on getting an arousing account of how she felt — when she saw the bodies, the terrorists, when she heard the screams. Feelings. And get her to tell viewers what she was feeling when she saw her best friend’s body.

Remember, all world-class reportage always begins with that one question: “How are you feeling?” But it wasn’t just on borrowed ideas that the news channels competed for TRPs. The skills these news channels have been honing for a long time came in handy too. In order of priority:

* Flash “exclusive” — even if the reporter is sending in reports from outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, where at least 400 reporters are stationed. And for viewers gone blind while watching blood-curdling reportage, scream “exclusive” after every nine words.

* Forget that commandos are in the hotel trying to rescue innocent people. Scream into the mike and tell the world that you, and only you, have an “exclusive” bit of information from your source, now on the hotel’s 19th floor.

* Get your reporters to lie down, ducking killer bullets, even as the cameraperson is standing next to him, recording histrionics.

* Ask anxious relatives if they think their friends and family members, who are still inside, will be able to walk out alive.

To finally clinch the TRP race, many top television editors were paradropped and the story was turned around. It became all about them and their trauma. Barkha Dutt took viewers on a tour of the Taj Mahal Hotel, choked up and emotional, gesturing violently, shrugging, crouching, hand on her aching heart. Rajdeep Sardesai rescued a foreigner from other reporters, to ask, “How are you feeling?” Arnab Goswami, of course, was kept in the studio. No one shouts “breaking news” louder than him.

When it was all over, after the commandos had gone home and the funerals had run their course, some passers-by were collected, handed candles, and in the glow of burning wax, victims were hugged, preferably Muslims, and asked again, for a final boost to TRPs: “How do you feel?”

 

I could not stop wondering if the cable transmission was switched off in TAJ would that have prevented the terrorists from getting information from outside world.There was live news floating everywhere.If it was being transmitted then definitely there is a chance of it being viewed somehow.

Also, there were some raw emotions from the survivors which I don't think the media has the right to capture and showcase to millions of viewers across the world.I personally feel the whole event was dramatized by the media when it was covering.

 

I never liked Barkha Dutt.Probably she is brave but she is over enthusistic that leads to irritation.

Yes , She broadcasted everything during Kargil thus leading to many Indian casualities.What was she upto?

Sensible bravery makes sense.But bravery without sense is stupid.

For that matter Srinivsan..When Mumbai was burning , he was interviewing the DGP for the next course of action.ATROCIOUS!