THE CREDULOUS AND THE CREDIBLE</headline>

Did the media really get its facts right in Gujarat? Was everything that we read and heard and saw nothing but the unembroidered, uncoloured truth?

THE CREDULOUS AND THE CREDIBLE

Ratna Rajaiah

"Yeh public hai, yeh sab jaanti hai, Yeh jo public hai."

Song from "Roti"

A lot of acrimony has been expressed in the last few months about the role of the media in the Gujarat violence. The politicians in power have complained that the media has been irresponsible by blowing up and distorting things to "pseudo-secular" proportions, a gripe typified by Narendra Modi - he of the quotable quotes - who, when asked about the continuing violence in Gujarat almost 2 months after February 27th said that what were events of just 24 minutes was given 24 hour coverage by television news channels.

The media on the other hand has maintained that it not only reported responsibly and truthfully but also because of the immediacy of its coverage - especially on television - and the strong censure of public opinion that it carried, it has played a critical role. In both curtailing the intensity of the violence and, after the initial vicious spurt, in reigning in state-sponsored participation and forcing the administration both in the state and at the centre to take steps - however half-hearted and ineffectual - to bring things back to a semblance of sanity and order.

The witness to this exchange as well as the recipients of the coverage of the events has been the public. You and me. The vast majority of whom did not go to Gujarat after the violence and will probably never ever go to Gujarat to find out for ourselves what actually happened. Who have no relatives or friends to give us eyewitness accounts - however third, fourth or nth hand - which would verify what actually happened. And why do we need to when we have one of the healthiest, most vibrant and independent media in the world to report to us the unbiased truth?

The question is - did they? Was everything that we read and heard and saw nothing but the unembroidered, uncoloured truth? Terrible things happened in Gujarat. But in the zeal to report that horror, did the media get carried away? Did the media, not just in India but internationally, in its fervent desire to bring the perpetrators of these hideous acts to light and to book, in its quest to display the horror of what happened, get its facts right? The disturbing possible conclusion is - maybe not. Let¿s look at just 2 examples.

Take the story of the mysterious e-mail that began to do the rounds just days after the violence started. It supposedly told us why the Godhra incident took place. In summary, apparently kar sevaks from the Sabarmati Express harassed the owner of a tea stall, an old Muslim man, by beating him up and pulling his beard. When his 16-year old daughter protested - as the story goes - the kar sevaks took the girl into one of the train compartments and shut the doors. The train began to move out of the station even as the old man kept banging on the door of the compartment, begging for his daughter¿s release. The kar sevaks did not release the girl in spite the train being brought to a halt by 2 other stall owners and people from the vicinity gathering and asking for the girl to be set free. Instead the kar sevaks pulled down the windows of the compartment. The mob reacted, stoning the compartment. The kar sevaks retaliated by attacking the mob with bamboo sticks. Then things escalated ending up in the mob setting on fire the two bogies in which 4 people were burnt to death. The e-mail carried the names and cell phone