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Journalism of Courage
Orissa. Television cameras hover above what the super cyclone could not sweep aside in its voracious appetite for destruction. Television crews travel along the remains of roads, peer out of vehicle windows 8212; we look over their shoulders. TV correspondents travel to spots no one has visited since the devastation. They are moved by the plight of their fellow citizens and if it also sounds good on air, that8217;s just part of the job: 8220;So-and-so is the first person to visit xyz,8221; boast TV anchors as if the correspondents are Neil Armstrong 8212; the first man on the moon.
They stand, or sit as STAR News8217; Barkha Dutt did, in the foreground of what8217;s left of Orissa, delivering dire pronouncements. The contrast is stark: here8217;s Dutt sitting with legs outstretched, toes almost dipping into the water, a lady at a beach party; there8217;s her companion 8212; a rotting human being. Each day, there are endless pointless? studio discussions on why what happened, happened, and why we8217;re never prepared for what happens when it happens. What else can the media do?
People tell the camera they can8217;t remember the taste of potable water or hot food; people desperately, scramble after, onto trucks which carry the promise of both DD: it8217;s survival of the fastest. There8217;s a sack of something to eat in the middle of an empty road; an old woman gathers up a fistful of dollars if only 8212; sorry, a fistful of grains from the sodden ground Zee News. Another fills a grey liquid in her surai: dead sea water STAR News. Emaciated people rush towards the wind of an approaching aeroplane, arms outstretched for whatever might be dropped DD. Hospitals, official visits, army relief operations and the reporters8217; olfactory experience of the stench from decomposing flesh human, animal?8230;.
In the beginning, TV crews specialised in horror stories: close-ups of mangled bodies and terrible tales: 15 million people affected, no water, no food, no homes, no electricity, no relief8230; then came the spectre of disease, riots and the sound of panic in reporters8217; voices. Towards the middle of last week, the camera retreated to take a long view: life limping back along with the survivors to some sort of abnormality. You saw the dead, but from a safe distance so that you could retain the dinner you had consumed or would eat after the news. Vinod Dua Zee News reminded us of the anomaly: in the capital, we8217;re playing cards, attending dinner parties while an entire state destructs. 8220;Is Delhi so far from Orissa?8221; he asked. By Thursday, Orissa wasn8217;t the lead story, Bofors was. On Friday, the PM8217;s visit resurrected it. That8217;s the way it was8230;.
The politics of disasters. On Thursday, DD1 carried a news item on Mr.Navin Patnaik, Minister Mines and Minerals, a great son of Orissa8217;s soil his BJD party with BJP swept the Orissa Lok Sabha polls during a visit to Paradip. On camera, he said that no state minister or top state official was to be found in Paradip. This astonished and appalled him. Quite rightly too.
At this point, DD should have given the ruling Congress government the right of reply to this charge. No such thing. When Mr.Pramod Mahajan was Minister of Information and Broadcasting, he was fond of saying that DD and AIR had attained credibility because competition from private TV channels would otherwise expose them, because otherwise people would not watch DD. How optimistic of him and how wrong: DD doesn8217;t appear to care about these niceties. News items such as this one, though fleeting, damn the NDA government8217;s opponents and the channel8217;s pretensions of fairplay.
Speaking of which, you should have heard the contrasting descriptions of the Pope8217;s arrival in New Delhi. CNN described the reception as 8220;cool8221; and highlighted the atrocities against Christians; STAR News said the red carpet was laid out and emphasised conciliatory statements by the Vatican spokesman. Which version to believe? Is news dictated by the colour of our skins and our religions too?
Lastly, Chehraa. What a macabre film to premiere on DD1. Doctor falls for chubby-cheeked lad in Ooty; he dies following their marriage. His double returns, wedded to a mentally challenged woman who the doc nurses. Doctor in love. With double. Kills wife. Learns beloved loves another and had framed love-sick doc. Poor taste, bad production values: looked like an enlarged version of a TV show, Suspense Hour.
