The Taj Hotel is still burning into our memory chip (as if it wasn’t already indelibly imprinted there); the Mumbai attacks still play on all news channels with that single myth-making still of gun-toting Kasab leading the way; the government or the security agencies are still leaking if not speaking to the media. So almost six weeks after 26/11 nothing has changed. 2008 is dead, long live 2009. 

India TV and NDTV 24x7 offered us Kasab’s interrogation as did others. But no two versions were the same. NDTV brought us excerpts like — I want to speak to my mother, I will stay here and never pick up a gun again, they say I am a hero. India TV had phone calls with ‘Aka’ the controller in Pakistan.  

Sahara Samay and Headlines Today broadcast the ‘confessions’ of BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari who reportedly killed a PWD engineer. We saw the Guwahati blasts and the injured nursing their wounds on Zee News; and photographs of the dead Mumbai terrorists (enough to curdle amrit let alone milk) are telecast every day. It’s news as usual. 

Except. It wasn’t supposed to be, post-26/11. The government was to have a media management coordination plan that eliminated anonymous leaks here, there and everywhere, or officials who spoke in different voices. The news channels introduced self-regulation that promised not to repeat disturbing visuals of terrorist attacks or crimes. Is there some back-scratching going on here? Watching the interminable ‘Pakistan is the enemy’ coverage on channels such as Times Now, you sense they have become the government’s loudspeakers. However, since they often speak in contradictory voices we don’t know which one, if any, is the government’s. 

... contd.