Wide angle

The government was not just a source of information but also the prime facilitator. In times of war and on most foreign policy issues, the government and the media are batting on the same side. There can be a difference of opinion on issues but these never recoil on national interest.

For example, major newspapers inthe US disagreed with the high tolerance level for military rule in Islamabad and Pakistani support for terrorism that elements in the State Department and Pentagon were recommending. The result is that a bad policy is in the process of being corrected in the context of the Clinton visit. So, Kargil was a great success in the evolving relationship between the state and the media.

The hijack, alas, was a different kettle of fish. It is another matter that the government did not cover itself with glory in its handling. That is not the issue at debate. In fact, the bungling became the story.

The issue here is quite different and I believe the government is being unnecessarily defensive. It was responsible for bad hijack management. It was not responsible for bad media policy. What could the government have done? What is the media8217;s complaint?

A certain lack of clarity attends the debate because those involved in it are mixing up the requirements of the print media with that of the electronic media. For theprint media, regular briefings, off the record backgrounders, even telephone conversations are sufficient. But what use is all of this to the electronic media. Yes, briefing and backgrounders can enable the TV reporter to embellish his voice-over or commentary.

But the voice-over and the commentary have to have images, actual footage to support. You cannot have a blank screen and a disembodied voice or, worse, a blank and tired looking anchor coaxing wisdom out of panelists, one more ignorant than the other on what a hijack is all about.

But the government could have given us more information, goes the complaint. Supposing the government gave you more information, what would you have done with it in the absence of real, live images? The government should obtain from the archives of the CBS, ABC and NBC in the US actual footage on how the TWA hijack in Beirut and several other such events was covered by competitive TV networks. Invite the Indian TV media for a special screening. It will be a soberingexperience for TV journalists. The Amerian President watched the Gulf war on CNN. Ted Turner did not go to the White House, cap in hand, complaining that he had not been briefed.

Yes, the coverage of the Gulf war itself was a result of perfect co-ordination between the US government and CNN. In fact, CNN was part of the war effort rather as our own electronic media was during Kargil.

What, you might ask, am I suggesting? Simply this: the hijack dramatised the inadequacy of our TV coverage of foreign affairs. Kathmandu, Lahore, Dubai and Kandahar are all stations outside India. Kargil was in India and the Army helped. As it happens, not one of these destinations is more than two hours flying time away from New Delhi. And yet our vibrant TV networks failed to obtain any footage. A media geared for the coverage of foreign affairs, with a suitable network of staffers and stringers spread over Nepal, Emirates and Central Asia would have supplemented such information as the government was in possession of. Thisis the sort of quot;partnershipquot; that must be forged between the state and the independent media: adversarial in every other sense but closing ranks on issues of national security.

The hijack has brought into bold relief the evolving new relationship between the national security establishment and the electronic media. The state can, at best, be a facilitator. The Pentagon facilitated American journalists to reach the scene of action in Riyadh, Bosnia, Haiti or Kosovo. The Pentagon did not hire cameramen to cover the events and then spoon-feed the networks. After Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s visit to China ended in disaster, I disengaged myself from the Press party and proceeded to Hanoi to cover the Sino-Vietnam War. I covered the battle of Lang Sou, which convinced me that contrary to the prevailing wisdom, the Chinese had taken a beating.

My coverage caused our embassy in Beijing to thank me for the useful inputs my stories had provided. Sushital Bannerjee, Defence Secretary, arranged for the Army headquartersto debrief me on what I had seen at Lang Sou. Here was the tiniest evidence of the partnership I talk about.