"The press in nepal is not otherwise muzzled"

later, they mainly concentrated on descriptive news. In fact it was the much-maligned weekly tabloids that lived up to some level of journalistic principle. The local FM radio stations and the national state-owned Radio Nepal fed the public with an overdose of mournful shenai music all of this past week and more, and the same was the case with Nepal Television.

Under such circumstances, the news that was available came from websites (such as those of www.nepalnews.com) and the outside channels, particularly BBC and the Indian channels.

Why were the Indian channels in particular blacked out?

With the Nepali news media keeping mum, it was left to the very active Indian satellite channels to carry news. Some of this was not done professionally, while others were quite adequate. However, there was unrest on the streets emanating from the public feeling that it was being fed false news. In order to control the public¿s wrath, says the government, it pulled the plug on the cable
television (the main cable company is run by the same Mr. Jameem Shah).

Not only the news channels, but also the entertainment channels were blacked out as a mark the period of mourning. Entertainment, or cricket, would probably have kept more people indoors and less agitation on the streets. In any case, the blackout of the news channels was just for a couple of days and they are back on.

There are constant references to the unpopularity of the Indian media during the coverage of the this tragedy. Is it possible to pinpoint the cause of this unpopularity?

Well, to begin with, the general perception that has been in place over the years is that when it comes to international affairs (including bilateral affairs with Nepal), the New Delhi press tends to take a ¿statist¿ approach, that of the Indian government. There is no surprise there. What happened with the advent of satellite television is that, particularly in the beginning, it was like a toy that
was still being tried out. During the lengthy crisis of the Indian Airlines Kathmandu-Kandahar hijack, (Dec 1999-Jan 2000) there was a lot of tendentious reportage, particularly by one channel which chose to exploit the crisis to surge ahead of the competition. Nepalis felt during that period that there was a lot of bias and shoddy reporting, and it is from that period that there has been negativism against the Indian media.

Keep in mind that Nepalis are especially critical of Indian media because they are also more of consumers of Indian media than Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Sri Lankans. Given the bad quality of programming on Nepal Television and given that thanks to Hindi films the Nepali population, a large proportion of it in any case, understands Hindi, it is no wonder that there is such reaction to
what is shown on satellite television from south of the border. Little things become galling for ¿nationalist¿ Nepalis viewers, for example when the anchor will make the mistake and say, "in other news from around the country..." when referring to Nepal. The fact that there are very few Nepali analysts who are approached for their on-air views, that mistakes are made over and over again on basic facts of the country (in the present instance, the very makeup of Nepali royalty -- one channel constantly confused Birendra and Dipendra, father and son, while presenting their bios), and so on, riles the Nepali-speaking, ¿nationalist¿ middle class of Kathmandu Valley.

My personal view is that despite the mistakes made on a nearly continuous basis initially, the Indian satellite channels have quickly become savvy about Nepal and in the absence of Nepal¿s own media, they did play, on balance, a positive role in the present crisis.