Mumbai blasts: the hullabaloo over 'sensitivity' - Part 2

The irony is, the country is in a fragile environment where people are seething with anger and frustration. Anybody and everybody has the might to draw the lines of what can be considered insensitive and what can be considered acceptable. No doubt the media wields great power at such times. But who is holding the media accountable for their insensitivity? As the siege at the two hotels and Narimaan house progressed, every news channel reduced the sad clips and disturbing images from these places into a musical montage - CNN style.


Visual graphic teams returned to their desks, sound guys mixed some quick techno beats with harrowing music and editors hastily stitched whatever clips they could find. The result was a plethora of shaky 'realistic' music videos. What should have been solemn moments on TV, of respecting, honoring and paying homage to those affected turned out to be an all-out contest between news channels... who had the best graphics team in town.


No different was the fate of the state Home Minister Mr. R. R. Patil who resigned a few minutes before the Chief Minister did. Adamant till the end, he refused to resign until a phone call from the higher ups told him he had been too 'insensitive'. At an earlier press conference, he had callously remarked that the Mumbai blasts were in no way an intelligence failure on the government's part. He further added, indifferently, that rather one must accept that big cities will often face such situations. His 'insensitivity' at trivializing the issue went down extremely well with the media as they had found their next scapegoat. Tsk tsk, it had been only hours since their first one.


Now, there is no doubt in my mind that these ministers should be thrown out. I will go even further and say that they should be barred to represent their respective parties for a good few years. Yes, they were incompetent, unprepared, and definitely insensitive. They undoubtedly deserved the axe.





But what is a little scary is the way they were forced to leave. The way the media hunted for scapegoats by inciting public opinion was a little unbecoming of the media (they played the 10 second footage of Mr. Deshmukh in the hotel and Mr. Patil making the comment three times in a row on CNN-IBN meanwhile NDTV kept senselessly zooming in and out of Mr. Varma's picture continuously).


Of course the media is human like any one of us. Humans with prejudices and emotions. And emotions are certainly running high in the country right now. And it wouldn't surprise me if the media has taken it unto them that it is their responsibility to rid the political echelons of bad leaders. .. that it is for them to get the country back into its tracks. But I wonder how long will such good intentions last?


Already the frantic squabbling over TRP ratings and viewership seems to divide the news channels as each tries to get the 'exclusive' on every report. Every news channel is dying to impress upon their viewers that theirs is the place to receive the latest, newest and never-till-seen-now footage... that their 'exclusive' interviews with victims and citizens offer the freshest perspective.


But in all this mayhem, I wonder if they have forgotten one tiny thing... that people whose relatives have been killed in a terrorist attack or people traumatized in a shootout probably should not be subject to 'exclusive' reports in the first place. That the victim's sorrow is universal and not proprietary to any channel. And even if they did get the exclusive rights for such interviews, at least have the sensitivity not to proclaim it.