Whose media? Which People--A perceptive article

Here is a perceptive piece in The Hindu, which questions the way India's media--particularly the electronic one-- is functioning.
The angle is not new--can the media be run like any other business?
The answer, says the author, is no.
So what's new?
I think two things are.
One is the sense of detail with which he rips apart the edifice of some of the bad, insensitive professional practices and social pretensions.
Two, after the recent Mumbai attacks and the way both social and media issues are discussed, it brings back into the limelightlarger issues in a deeper way.

How Mumbai 26/11 shaped the future of media in India

Mumbai, 26/11/2008

Terrorists carried sat-phones
Eyewitnesses used Twitter feeds
TV cameras rolled live
Social activists attacked them on blogs
Citizens rallied around Facebook pages

That was the world's first instance of "convergence terrorism" or Terrorism 2.0 as I said.
It is clear that media will never be the same again.
Facebook groups sprung up against Barkha Dutt, India's most familiar English TV news anchorette. And pieces by activist writers like Harini Calamur (like this took on the media.
Here are my brief observations.

1)Media will never be the same again, because Internet activism is acting as a countervailing influence on conventional media. Even if they care only for viewership, and claim publicly that only viewers matter, there will be some influence.

2) There are still a huge number of people out there who believe the role of the media as a noble "watchdog" purveying facts, presenting it responsibly. Who is going to PAY for this journalism? Can these activists subsidise the high cost of the publishing business?

3) Increasingly, social bookmarking and e-mail are emerging as powerful drivers of attention.
Gnani Sankaran's piece
questioning the Taj as Mumbai's icon became quite a rage on the Net.

Ban ‘live’ reporting of hostage rescue missions?

Thought provoking post from a respected media blog.

Ban ‘live’ reporting of hostage rescue missions?

via sans serif by churumuri on 11/27/08

"Several foreign nationals are trapped in the Taj Hotel Mahal"

"The top management of a multinational corporation was meeting…"

"Terrorists are suspected to be on the 9th floor…"

"NSG troops are about to have arrived in Mumbai…"

"NSG commandos have entered the Hotel…"

Some of the information telecast live by all news channels on yesterday's terror attack on Bombay.

SHRINIDHI HANDE writes from Madras: News channels have an objective—to fetch the latest news and share them with viewers, much before a competitor channel does that. But I feel this habit of indiscriminate live reporting, while a combat operation is in progress, can be catastrophic for the success of the military operations against terror.

Let us just think for a while. Do we really need to know everything on a 'as soon as it happens' basis? I feel not. Whether NSG commandos have just arrived at airport, or have entered the hotel or are on the first floor or second at this moment, is not necessary to be revealed to the general public on a realtime basis.

Showing such news live, will be immensely useful only to terrorists and their supporters outside.

Consider this. The commandos only know that the militants are somewhere inside the hotel, but the militants know everything about the movements and positions of their pursuers through TV.

Like:

# Who is on their trail (Army/ NSG/ local police, etc)

# What is their ETA (estimated time of arrival), which tells them, how much time they have before a gun battle would begin)

# Where they are right now, at the main entrance/ just entered their floor

# How is the world responding? Is there pressure mounting on the government to succumb to the demands of terrorists to get the hostages freed (so that they can act tough during negotiation)?

# How many of their friends are alive or dead (so that they can assess their strength)?

# What has been the impact of their strike-how many police and civilian dead, the current morale of police, who all as been detained/suspected?

# Live visuals of the street-to assess a possible escape strategy

# What information about them the outside world has (which floor they are in, their head count etc. And much more…

In my view, all this information, while useful to viewers and relatives of victims, also helps the terrorists/ militants to consolidate their position and pose a greater challenge to commandos trying to hunt them down and/ or rescue the hostages.

Why is our media helping them by airing live all the sensitive information about the anti terror operations?

The common man does not need to know them on a live basis.

Can't the information & broadcasting ministry think of banning live reporting during a hostage crisis? Let the channels air the news with a delay of few hours, so that the police and security agencies will have a lead time of few hours, wherein terrorists would be as equally uninformed as they are.

Please note that I am not advocating censorship. I am all for free speech and expression. What I am proposing, is that security agencies should have the power to impose a delay of say three to six hours w.r.t live reporting of anti terror operations.

Let the TV channels record whatever they want, but they should be aired only after a gap of few hours. I do not think anyone loses anything with this.

The movie A Wednesday also shares same opinion. I feel the good old days of oncein a day news bulletin was far better.

What do you think?

(This post is dedicated to all the brave police officials and innocent civilians who lost their lives in yesterday's terror attack in Bombay)

CBI= Central Bureau of Insinuation?

The Arushi murder case in Noida is proving to be an excellent case study on police and media behaviour in India.
CBI fumbles and bumbles
Media grumbles and mumbles
And they both tumble.

Questions and Answers:

Does the media think CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) is a judicial or quasi-judicial agency?

Yes

(For Gawd's sake, someone should tell them it is just the federal police...just a bunch of guys who swapped khakhi trousers for ill-fitting safari suits, ok?)

Does the media understand or care to explain to the readers/viewers the nature of CBI?

Who cares? A story a day keeps sensible analysis away

Can you cover up one bad allegation with a whitewash spin?

Yes. Why not? CBI is in the business of uncovering crime, not blaming the innocent. That is a job for the media to do.

Why is Arushi being the only victim getting so much media attention?

Because she is a regular middle-class TV-watcher-populace's game.

Does this help anyone?

Who cares? You can't win elections with TRPs, but you can make money

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In the light of all the above points, here are some new expansions for CBI:

Central Bureau of Insinuation
Central Bureau of Improvisation
Central Bureau of Innuendo
Central Book-keepers of Innocence

Media vs Media...When one news organisation covers another

What happens when a media organisation does a story about a rival? How does the dog cover dog when its job is to eat it? An interesting article in New York Times is at its ranting best.

I am not even commenting, but the plot does look familiar.