In the early hours of the morning on Thursday November 27, while terrorists were wreaking havoc inside Mumbai’s historic Taj Mahal hotel, a battle of a different kind erupted outside.
Firemen rescuing guests from the burning upper floors were bringing them to the square in front of the Taj, where the media were gathering to cover the unfolding siege. In the midst of this, a journalist from NewsX, one of India’s many new round-the-clock cable channels, was shoved by a hotel staffer, who was helping the guests. With adrenaline already high and gunshots in the building behind them, the pushes turned into a brawl between hotel staff and the media.
The ugly incident outraged many onlookers. Yet it was just one of many similar episodes that have taken place as the kind of sensationalist live television news coverage so common elsewhere in the world sweeps through Indian television.
At the Oberoi, the other luxury hotel besieged by terrorists, camera crews mobbed shocked survivors as they stepped from the building. People who only moments earlier had thought they were going to die had to field questions such as: “How do you feel?” Anguished relatives demanded to know why the police had not cordoned the area off.
India’s media have been transformed in the past five years. Encouraged by the rapid emergence of India’s economy, foreign investors ranging from Viacom and Disney to Turner have flocked to the sector. Today there are about 120 channels in India running 24-hour news in English, Hindi and other regional languages, according to the Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies. The biggest include CNN-IBN, a partnership between Cable News Network of the US, local entrepreneur Raghav Bahl, Times Now (a group that until recently had a tie-up with Reuters) and domestic group NDTV.
The coverage at many channels is always shrill – no matter how big or small the news. Some flash the words “Breaking News” all day and almost all crowd their screens with dazzling tickers and boxes. Competition is intense. The only thing that matters is to be “first”, even if first is wrong. A lack of experienced reporters makes matters worse. “Scoops” regularly appear on the tickers, only to be pulled when they prove to be wrong.
The attacks on Mumbai, which are being described as India’s 9/11, provided this new wave of media with its first frontline global news event since the Kargil War between India and Pakistan in 1999. And in many ways, Indian television news was found wanting.
Even reputable channels suffered from appalling inaccuracies as they battled to be “first”. Many said the battle in the Taj was over by Thursday night, when people at the scene could still hear firing. Rumours were not filtered properly. On the Friday of the attacks, word swept through the city that there was another wave of shooting at the main train station. Although untrue, it was picked up by CNN-IBN, which later apologised.
The media was also lambasted by military figures such as navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta for showing live military operations and updates on hostages so that the terrorists – had they had time to watch TV – would have known exactly what their opponents were doing. On one of the days of the attack, cable operators unilaterally took the news channels off air. Although there was no official announcement, many believe this was at the behest of the security forces.
In another incident, excited anchors on India TV spoke by telephone toa terrorist identified as Shahadullah who was holed up inside the Taj hotel and asked him how many terrorists were with him. “Why should I tell you?” he replied. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting served the channel a reprimand for airing the conversation.
But India’s new media – aggressive, gullible and insensitive as they might be – also played a crucial positive role in the events. They were able to keep Mumbai citizens far better informed of the state of play on the ground than their own government, perhaps saving lives by keeping people at home.
In a country ruled by sometimes extraordinarily apathetic politicians, the media has been tenacious in rounding on leaders and exposing their gaffes and insensitivity following the attacks. One state politician has already been forced to resign after describing them as a “small incident”; another appears to be on the verge of going after taking a movie director and his actor son on a voyeuristic tour of the Taj following the attacks. Such accountability would have been unthinkable even as recently as the mid-1990s, when India’s media consisted of a few tightly supervised television stations.
Finally, it is wrong to blame journalists for trying to cover the attacks as closely as possible. While the media should have been more sensitive and responsible, the security forces did not secure the areas around the hotels and other sieges properly. This reporter could have walked straight into the Taj on the first night of the attacks, so lax was security. And many channels did, in fact, remove footage when asked to do so.
Brash, trigger-happy and at times downright ugly as its behaviour might have been, India’s new television is beginning to play the role of a proper Fourth Estate in a country in which dissatisfaction with institutions of authority is at an all-time high.
