Selling India for TRPs

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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:32 AM, sunbeam65 wrote:

He who controls the media controls the mind."

~ Jim Morrison.

An Israeli security expert had suggested a total TV blackout as the jehadis wanted their Mumbai horror show to be put on display for the world.

Our news channels had clue played into the terrorists' hands. ( The jehadis chose the Thanksgiving weekend in the US to show India in a poor light as an investment/business/tourist destination).

The terrorists wanted maximum TV eyeballs and they got it! The right to security is above the right to information.

The "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality of television news is failing us. TV's hunger for shocking pictures is distorting the world's' view of terrorism in India, and its excessive use of terrorist video is spreading propaganda of an even more damaging sort.

TV outlets run the risk of becoming mindless, amoral communications tools by which terrorists advertise their brutality, enlarge their reputations and belittle those who would protect us.

The Pew Charitable Trusts' 2004 report on the state of the U.S. media found a troubling trend:

News outlets "disseminate" news from other sources rather than collect it themselves, and the end video product often becomes repetitive, chaotic and incoherent "raw news." Ultimately, news decisions are surrendered to those who would manipulate it for their own ends. TV may need to explore a new ethic — with some stern written-down policies including:

1) A refusal to air video or other propaganda from terrorist Web sites or other anonymous terrorist sources, except in the rare circumstances that such information warns viewers of an imminent, credible threat.
2) A prohibition against using images that aren't shot by network or other legitimate photographers. That means not using video shot by terrorists or insurgents, because these images are suspect, often staged for propaganda.
3) A new practice of prominently labeling all non-network, freelance or bystander video — akin to the photo credit in print journalism — so audiences can judge the source of each image.
4) A commitment to require the same sharp scrutiny and relentless challenges to terrorists and insurgents that journalists traditionally give our own government and military officials.

Well done Barkha (NDTV), Rajdeep (CNN-IBN) and Arnab (Times Now)!

Also your analysis was lame, hysterical and I had to surf the Webto understand and analyze the situation and after effects.

Please don't sell your Motherland for TRPs.

PS: The London blasts had no images of the inside of the Tube.,