Media vs media

The foreign correspondent8217;s dispatch is always enlightening for more than the developments it documents. When big events occur 8212; like the Mumbai terror attack 8212; the dispatch can be like a mirror placed at an angle to the domestic discourse. It can highlight, and even fill in, the gaps in domestic debate. At times, it can blunt unnecessarily sharp edges. And when relations are tense with the country from which the view is being sent 8212; as it is all too often between India and Pakistan 8212; informative dispatches can increase the middle ground to create a constituency against recklessness. Of course, the opposite too can happen, as it is now in the clash that8217;s broken out between sections of the Indian and Pakistani media, especially on television discussion shows, charging the airwaves each night with anchors and journalists meeting by satellite and giving the appearance that all outstanding issues between the two countries would be settled there and then, with not a quarter yielded.

Indian and Pakistani journalists are accustomed to reporting on bilateral issues keeping in mind context and history. For reasons best understood by the two countries, access for each other8217;s reporters is extremely restricted. For realistic measures of what is transpiring in the other8217;s country, the Indian and Pakistani press often rely on reports printed and aired locally. Even in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack, some very good reporting has kept the story moving. Part of the problem, however, is that anchors are impatient to get the story moving faster, to get assessments of what would happen next. In itself, that is understandable. What is not is how swiftly journalists have assumed the burden of defending their countries rhetorically 8212; sometimes even making arguments their foreign office spokespersons may not venture into. Or of asking 8212; in nothing else but their capacity as journalists 8212; for measures to be taken by the other country.

Television, by its very nature, is more prone to such dynamics. But journalists in India and Pakistan are veterans of enough discussions on difficult subjects to be able to avoid war-mongering and belligerence. It should not be difficult for them to revert to discussions and reports that inform, and not provoke.