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HOLIDAY BAD TIME FOR CRISIS COVERAGE
Monday, December 1 2008
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Television coverage of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai exposed the weakness of the broadcast and cable networks in responding to major events over a U.S. national holiday, several media critics have maintained. They were particularly critical of reports suggesting that the cadre of attackers had targeted U.S. and British citizens. In fact, of 183 known dead as of Monday evening only 18 were foreign nationals, five of whom were American (three of them killed at Nariman House, a Jewish center operated by the Brooklyn-based Chabad organization) and one British. Ray Wadia, a media consultant and former CNN International executive producer said in a webcast from Mumbai that local residents who watched CNN coverage were disgusted by the emphasis on Western casualties. "This is an attack on India and Indians first and foremost," he said, On the website of the South Asian Journalists Assn., one writer said that the news media ignored the horrific attacks on the VT train station, where the slaughter began. "A lot of innocent commuters from middle- and lower-income families were gunned down in cold blood, but I guess the news companies did not find it news worthy enough when compared to the high profile Taj [luxury hotel]. By the same token, Pakistan's media outlets were complaining that Indian journalists were portraying the attacks as being supported by Pakistan. Pakistan's The News said, "Indian [TV] anchors and analysts with one voice analyzed the incident purely based on the figment of their imaginations." Numerous writers mentioned the fact that TV coverage often relied on persons at the scene of the attacks submitting video taken with cell phones and camcorders. "The witnesses are taking over the news," veteran TV critic Jeff Jarvis, now a journalism professor at the City University of New York, wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper. "That will fundamentally change our experience of news, the role of witnesses and participants, the role of journalists and news organizations, and the impact reporting has on events." In the New York Times, Brian Stelter and Noam Cohen wrote: "The attacks in India served as another case study in how technology is transforming people into potential reporters, adding a new dimension to the news media." Meanwhile India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said it would look into charges that Internet and TV coverage provided vital information to the terrorists. For about a half hour the city's deputy commissioner of police imposed a blackout of TV news channels. The blackout was lifted after representatives of the news media filed a protest. (Several outlets ignored the blackout order.)
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