Terror vision: live and so terribly inclusive

This column has abseiled down from the tiny obscure place where newspaper columns go when they stop appearing...

This column has abseiled down from the tiny obscure place where newspaper columns go when they stop appearing — it last came out on January 20 2007 — and is making this brief reappearance because, really, special forces abseiling down to battle terrorists cannot be a live event on news television. Of course, this column isn’t the only one arguing this, and neither should that have been the case. The limits of TV news coverage of terrorist/hostage situations deserve a national debate where participants should get a full say without getting cut off by someone presuming to anchor the discussion. Your correspondent’s small contribution to that debate will start from an observation made by a BBC anchor on Thursday night.

But before that, for old time’s sake, allow an indulgence. After almost two years of my watching them without the imperatives of a TV news column, how did the channels look when the imperative was briefly back? Well, NDTV is still a bit late catching the breaking news, CNN-IBN is still a bit feverish reporting it, Aaj Tak’s background colours are still an assault, Times Now still has too much of its editor, and of course if India TV can talk to ghosts, it’s child’s play for them to talk to a terrorist. Of the new entrants, News 24 putting its anchor on a virtual boat, which was adrift in a virtual sea — the terrorists came by sea, you see — has set a new standard that sadly may be emulated by others.

That said, it is necessary to say that all the ‘big’ channels displayed the kind of energy that a news event of this kind demands. TV news is an exhausting job in normal times. In times like these anyone watching TV news should remember that the medium demands enormous effort of those in the foreground and background. We were kept fairly well informed by TV news.

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Too well informed, in fact. And to go back and paraphrase what the BBC anchor said — a similar situation in the West would have never seen TV cameras so close to and so revealing of action by security forces. TV news will argue that in the absence of authorities laying down and enforcing clear rules of engagement, in the presence of shockingly camera-happy senior officers and given the pressures of competitive broadcasting, what happened is inevitable.

Not fully acceptable. Senior staff at channels like NDTV, CNN-IBN and Times Now at least should have known live shots of an NSG operation in progress is journalistic irresponsibility. CNN-IBN said during this live broadcast that the fact that power had been cut off in the Nariman House area means that the terrorists had no access to TV news. So we are sure then, are we, that those thugs had no outside contacts?

We can live with NDTV senior editors almost demanding that rescued hotel guests show TV-worthy emotion. Or with a CNN-IBN anchor almost hectoring its reporter when a previously claimed exclusive turned out to be not so true. Or with a Times Now anchor virtually saying reporters’ pieces for them. Or with the always-rushed character of Indian TV news that precludes, even once in a 24-hour news cycle, a calm putting-it-all-together analysis. All this is perhaps inevitable.

But knowing when to turn the camera away is doable. That Shivraj Patil can give away information on NSG operation is no excuse at all. By those standards, where will TV news be?

saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com

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