Not news without a communal angle?

IN Media Watch Briefs | 28/04/2018

Do journalists not jump on something unless they sniff a communal angle? Three doctors from the BRD Medical Hospital were made scapegoats and arrested in the Gorakhpur crisis where 30 children died. Dr Kafeel Khan, hailed by the media as the ``hero'' who had arranged oxygen cylinders, was charged with attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy and finally released on bail last week. After his wife held a press conference in Delhi to highlight the repeated denial of bail to her husband and to Dr Rajeev Mishra and Dr Purnima Sukla, as well as their failing health. In Dr Khan's letter released to the press by his wife, he talks about how ``we'' were made scapegoats for what was administrative failure. But the press chose to focus on Khan's arrest, seeing it as more evidence of the UP CM's communal mindset. The two other doctors who are not Muslims have not got bail yet. But that is not news. If and when they get bail, one wonders whether that would be as well publicised as Dr Khan's release.

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