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By Rashme Sehgal NDTV Group Editor Barkha Dutt counters charges of insensitive, invasive and excessive coverage of the Mumbai attacks on 26/11
 The coverage of the terror attack on Mumbai on November 26 and its aftermath has seen television journalists at the receiving end of a great deal of criticism. The charges are that the coverage was insensitive, intrusive and excessive. And that the mad scramble for 24X7 live coverage actually jeopardised the rescue efforts. Barkha Dutt, Group Editor of NDTV, is surprised at the number of networking sites targeting her and the kind of coverage that her channels provided to this 60-hour-long assault. In this interview with Infochange she speaks out in defence of the televison coverage.
When covering a conflict of this magnitude, what kind of criteria do you set for your journalists? Certain basic criteria are laid out, irrespective of the nature of the conflict. Reporters have to keep in mind that they cannot jeopardise the ongoing operation, they must respect security concerns, not relay information of a sensitive nature, and not chase anybody in order to get an interview... But many of these norms were not being adhered to during the Mumbai attack. Even those of us who have reported conflict, war and counter-insurgency for several years were not prepared for what we encountered in Mumbai. This was an unparalleled emergency situation from which several new lessons will have to be learnt. The issue is that the government should have come up with an emergency protocol on how to handle this attack. There could have been a 10-20-minute delay in telecast or even more. This should have been indicated to us. But government officials and the Parliament Standing Committee on the Media have criticised television coverage for having compromised the position of the security forces? There may have been some unintentional mistakes but at no time did the media endanger the security forces. The government should have come up with a co-ordinated point of contact for information dissemination as was done by the US after 9/11. This was not done. As a result, the police, the politicians and the military spoke to us in different voices. For example, the leader of the marine commandos chose to hold a press conference right in the middle of the operation which was telecast live. Viewers were given a deluge of information which was often contradictory in nature? The hotel spokespersons gave us one set of figures, the police said something else and the politicians said something completely different. The Oberoi representative caused a lot of confusion when he said there were 200 people in the hotel. We were talking to our primary sources in an extremely dynamic situation. This would not have happened if there had been one spokesperson. I would like to emphasise that the media respected the security cordon that had been set up by the police and officials. If, as is now being suggested, the media was too close to the operations, then all one can say is that we would have been happy to have moved away if someone had asked us to do so. But in the 72 hours that we stood on reporting duty, not once were we asked to move further away. With no central point of contact, journalists were left to their own devices to get news. What kind of filters does television media have in place, especially when it is telecasting live? Was the kind of blanket coverage being given to the Mumbai attack called for in the first place? I do not believe the blanket saturation coverage was overdone. This attack was unprecedented in nature and was more in the form of an invasion than an attack. Like the general rule of journalism, we too cross-check our information with two primary sources before putting it on. Do you think the tendency to editorialise while you are reporting is acceptable or should reporters maintain a distance from what they are covering? It’s a bit subjective. What does editorialising mean? A journalist reflects the mood around him. When Mumbaikars gathered at the Gateway of India to express their anger against politicians, reporters were reflecting their anger. A reporter placed in the middle of such a situation will reflect the mood of what is going on around him. The Indian television media is still evolving and there is no one model which is uniform here. When Anderson Cooper was reporting on Hurricane Katrina for CNN, his reporting style was extremely emotional and personalised. This is not the BBC style. But a style issue cannot be mixed up with a code of ethics issue. An ethical argument is not about style. The codes we follow include not forcing people to speak, not spreading panic. Every channel, whether Hindi or English, approaches a situation with a different style. But is the driving force of television coverage TRP ratings? Coverage of the Mumbai attacks saw a spurt in TRP ratings across all channels? To insinuate that our coverage was determined by TRP ratings is an extremely insidious charge to make. The print media can also be extremely confrontational. Please do not question our intentions. This is an extremely dangerous game. We strive to maintain a balance between our reporting and TRPs, and TRPs have never been sought at the cost of ethics. I reject such a charge entirely. We are all learning how to arrive at the correct balance. There must be some standardised rule on how terrorist attacks should be covered across all news channels? There is no standardised rule. The BBC has its own code, CNN has its own. We are in the process of evolving our own. Shouldn’t the government step in and help frame some sort of regulatory norms? That would amount to censorship. I believe the existing self-regulatory code needs to be fleshed out more. I think even the National Broadcasters Association did not anticipate an attack of this magnitude. Justice J S Verma (retd) is looking at how the present code can be strengthened. The government will also be giving its inputs. The whole idea is to come up with a code that will be able to handle a major crisis of this dimension. InfoChange News & Features, December 2008 |
