‘TV is being asked to play God but is seen as the sinner’
Reprinted from the Indian Express,
Rajdeep Sardesai
`TV is being asked to play God but is seen as the sinner¿
Barkha Dutt:
`Channels the public hate the most are the ones watched the most. How so?¿
•Seema Chishti: There¿s a kind of anonymous journalist, the quiet scribe, deified by the Economist. On TV news you now have a very visible journalist. What are the advantages of the medium?
Barkha Dutt: There¿s an assumption made about TV that there¿s a deliberate end to anonymity. But the nature of the medium is real time and so there¿s much more intimacy with someone you see on TV. The person is a kind of filter between what¿s going on and the viewer. It¿s unfair to suggest that people are in TV to create personas of themselves. No one enters with a deliberate strategy saying, I¿m going to be bigger than the story. But we do bring our personalities into our reporting. That¿s as true for print as it is for TV. So the assumption that TV is about the person and not the issue is a false accusation. The intimacy TV brings can be disadvantageous because it brings with it much more scrutiny of the claustrophobic kind. Things get magnified and amplified on TV in ways that the person speaking does not intend.
Rajdeep Sardesai: There are strengths and constraints of a 24-hour format. TV can create a very personal connection between the reporter and the viewer. But there is a danger -- and it can¿t be minimized -- that at times the reporter becomes the story. We have to guard against that. Many years ago the venerable BBC broadcaster Robin Day said, TV is a tabloid medium at its best when there¿s war, disaster, etc. Possibly because the dramatic image speaks. TV is at its most powerful when there is that dramatic image.
The problem is that there¿s a lack of understanding that TV and print are very different, although there is a trend towards tabloidisation in both. There is a trend to scream, to be loud, to be extreme because you realize the viewer¿s or reader¿s attention span is becoming more and more fleeting. This is forcing you to have bolder headlines and bigger pictures in newspapers. In television it is forcing you to push for more polarized, extreme opinions –something I don¿t agree with.
•Anubhuti Vishnoi: Traditionally, TV has enjoyed public support but after 26/11 that may have changed. How does it feel for the watchdog of society to be under scrutiny?
Barkha Dutt: I think it¿s healthy to be under scrutiny. But we need to be wary of using phrases like `public outrage¿ which one hears a lot nowadays. There¿s a section of the public that is angry about the TV coverage and we need to hear them. But equally, there¿s a section of the public which is quite happy with the media coverage. I can testify to the fact that programmes which many hated were loved by many others.
TRP (viewership rating) is a bad word but we have to talk about these things. Surveys show that Doordarshan was the least sensational in its coverage of the Mumbai attack and it got the least viewers. It¿s almost like a self-loathing that I see in the public consumption of news: channels the public hate the most are the ones watched the most. How so?
We are paying very close attention to some of the constructive criticism that we have got, but at the same time, we are also free to disagree with some of the questions raised. You don¿t like someone¿s style of reporting? Great. But that¿s not an ethical issue. I find the ethical questions are mixed up with whether you like a reporter or an anchor. These are two completely different things.
Rajdeep Sardesai: TV is being asked to play God, to play multiple, larger than life roles. We¿re supposed to solve the nation¿s problems, ensure that coastal security is plugged, even that blasts do not happen. We are expected to take on terror, to hold politicians and police officers accountable and offer solutions. At the same time TV is seen as sinner. If the
In the context of the Mumbai attacks, the media is being accused of jingoism. Look, there are 150 channels today with different perspectives. Individual channels may have contributed to a jingoistic atmosphere. But did the media tell people to bash
The worry is that TV is being asked to do too much. It¿s not being treated as yet another form of journalism in this country. There is a lot of bad journalism in TV, terrible journalism. But that¿s not a reason to tar the entire medium in the manner that is happening.
•Suman Jha: The bigger charge is that the new age terrorist looks for a global audience, aims at 24x7 publicity and that TV probably played into his hands.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Are you telling me that 26/11 happened because the Lashkar-e-Toiba guys decided that they wanted to be on TV? That¿s unfair. The global image of the Taj burning was going to be a dominant global image in any case. Obviously, terrorism and any form of fundamentalism have always thrived on the oxygen of publicity. In the modern day it¿s the dramatic TV image. Let¿s look at the positives: look at the tsunami and the
Barkha Dutt: I find that when the coverage of a particular issue feeds into what people are feeling, they don¿t have a problem with many of the traits of TV. For example, when there was activism in the Jessica Lal case which appeals to a certain set of viewers, no one said we should be dispassionate journalists. When the
•Vidya Krishnan: When such a story is developing simultaneously at many levels -- hostage crises in Mumbai, Delhi saying something, Pakistan saying something else -- shouldn¿t the top editors have been in the office and told the reporters what to do instead of being at ground zero themselves?
Barkha Dutt: I don¿t agree. A top boss, at least in my office, is not like that.
Organizations don¿t have a single top boss. There are a number of people who are at the news desk. This happens in papers too
•Vidya Krishnan: But editors didn¿t go to the field.
Barkha Dutt: Would it be such a bad thing if they did? I think if I was seated behind a table trying to anchor this event as it unfolded in Mumbai, the distance between what was happening and me would have been so great I would have felt like a wire copy pusher rather than a journalist. But if I felt that my going would result in no other editorial filters being in place at office, then certainly there¿s a problem.
•Vidya: Do you feel that lapses like giving out room numbers, would have been avoided if you were in office?
Barkha Dutt: The first night when I was in office there was confusion about Oberoi Chambers???.That first night we said everyone was out of the building. We were flooded with calls from relatives of people inside Chambers, saying please don¿t say it¿s over, tell the police there are people inside. So then one of our correspondents said there are people in Chambers.
This wouldn¿t have changed if I was at the scene or in office. At every point the effort was not to give out room numbers and floors but certainly there were inadvertent lapses. There are mistakes that one has to learn from.
Rajdeep Sardesai: I don¿t think the problem is about whether the editor is in the office or on the spot. The problem is with editorial filters in general. When the news breaks, do you consult two, three sources or do you just go ahead with what one person has said? The entire debate is focused too narrowly on 26/11 and individual reporting. The problem of TV is not so much 26/11, it¿s day-to-day journalism. As I said we are globally faced by tabloidisation. One of the problems is that you make a small story into a very big story, or you sensationalise, exaggerate or magnify.
Barkha Dutt: I don¿t think it¿s deliberate though.
Rajdeep Sardesai: It may or may not be deliberate. I¿m not here to say that TV has done everything right but the issue is not where your editors are. You need better editorial filters wherever you are.
•Mihir Sharma: Don¿t you feel you are making choices on the nature of the coverage? At the Gateway of India protest you chose to focus on those signs which are more inflammatory?
Rajdeep Sardesai: One of the characteristics of 24-hour news TV is that it allows a great variety of opinion to be expressed. It¿s like this large vessel which constantly needs to be filled. My worry with TV is that extreme opinions get more of a hearing and are remembered the longest. The challenge is to distill that opinion wisely, not always easy in a live, real time situation.
Barkha Dutt: Basically the dialectics of conflict have too long defined a certain kind of journalism. But to answer your question, do we make choices? Yes, every day. In a live show, reining in an audience or allowing it to speak is a choice.
Rajdeep Sardesai: How do you not reflect the anger at the Gateway of India? Some of the anger is of an extreme form. But they are also legitimate Indian voices.
Barkha Dutt: We have received hate mail in equal measure from those who think we were too jingoistic and those who think we weren¿t. I have e-mails saying I¿m soft on Muslims and therefore I will not speak against
•Smita Aggarwal: Is it fair to compare the Indian media coverage of 26/11 with the coverage of 9/11?
Rajdeep Sardesai: If you make that comparison, there are certain stories we did very well. Look at our stories about heroes, survivors. Terrific stories. Stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things when there¿s an extraordinary situation. I¿m sure that¿s true for 9/11 as well. We are told that the Americans didn¿t show dead bodies, we did. But I think there was restraint here as well in several instances. Also, maybe Indian society is different from that in the
Barkha Dutt: There¿s a cultural specificity to Indians. I think there is a one step-removed style of journalism in
•Coomi Kapoor The difference between 9/11 and 26/11 was in the sense of responsibility of TV. Here, TV coverage threatened the lives of hostages and others, commandoes were shown landing on roofs.
Barkha Dutt: We didn¿t show the commandos coming down, live. We showed it 45 minutes later. It¿s wrong to assume there was no self-censorship but we were not fully prepared for what happened.
•Seema Chishti: Forty-five minutes seems like a lip service to responsibility.
Rajdeep Sardesai: We need an emergency protocol. We need rigorous self-censorship. The problem here is that we are in a chaotic media environment where we have intense internal competition and a Government at sixes and sevens in situations like this.
I had to go through the embarrassment of saying on air that there was firing which had taken place at CST because that is what the reporter had said. A gunshot was reportedly fired in the air and I have pictures to show of policemen with guns taking aim. As it turned out, that was sparked off by a rumour and people were running around. But I had no business to say what I said and I apologized. But it¿s not good enough. What do I do next time? I simply have to put in place a stronger process of news filtration.
The Government had created a ridiculous situation at Nariman House where large crowds were allowed into the area and everything had become a tamasha. The prime responsibility lies with the government and secondary responsibility with us. But remember: we were deciding in real time what you can show and what you can¿t. It¿s a tough call.
•Mahima Kaul: In such situations, do you believe people think -- this is what we want and don¿t want from TV?
Barkha Dutt: I would be wary of drawing a generalization of what the viewer wants because there is no ``the¿¿ viewer out there. More choices mean viewers will be more demanding.
Rajdeep Sardesai: My worry is that the nature of the debate is confrontational and hostile between print and TV, between viewer and channel. It¿s polarized. We need to have a rational debate where you look at constraints and strengths. There¿s a lot happening in TV and yet we tend to focus on individuals much too much.
Finally, it comes down to your conscience -- are you doing the right thing? That is the basic credo. Unfortunately, what is happening now is that the ethical standards vary too much. That¿s true of print also. Journalism must necessarily remain not what the viewer wants to see but what he ought to know. Otherwise we should do something else.
•Shailaja Bajpai: If a situation similar to 26/11 were to recur, what would you do differently from 26/11? Broadcasters have now evolved an Emergency Protocol for such situations but will self-regulation work or are you leaving the door open for Government interference?
Rajdeep Sardesai: It¿s not enough for us to just say we are self-regulating. We have devised a very fine code of conduct but the question is of implementation. Regulation by the News Broadcasting Authority was set up on Mahatma Gandhi¿s Birthday this year. You can¿t judge it only on the basis of 26/11. At the end of the day, self-regulation will work depending on an individual channel¿s determination to implement it. It¿s for us to get our act together.
Dutt:I think the single biggest question thrown up by the TV coverage that bothers me as journalist is -- did you compromise operational security and endanger lives? On that the industry would be happy to be on the side of caution and not show an encounter live. I think the other lesson is to hold press conferences properly, given that the Government can be as chaotic as the media. We have to push hard and say we need a particular agency and a crisis management spokesperson we can go with. It happened in Kargil which started off in exactly the same chaotic way and then midway, the Ministry of Defence started to have four press conferences a day.
•Ambreen Khan: We watched TV for three days, we watched you. How do you position yourselves in the middle of a breaking story?
Rajdeep Sardesai: We should position ourselves as tellers of a huge story, not as participants. Please don¿t expect us to play god and influence the course of the story.
Barkha Dutt: We were there to mediate what we saw and bring it to you. There¿s a viewership out there which decides everything. If we go by that one barometer then I think we did quite well.
•Vidya Krishnan: Sometimes there might not be any news. Can we have news so the reporter is not forced to pick up any news that comes his way?
Barkha Dutt: Twenty-four hour news is not designed for 24-hour viewership. It is available for you so that you can learn what is happening no matter what the time of the day.
Rajdeep Sardesai: A good channel should realise that news is not a ball-by-ball commentary At times we are expected to churn out something ¿new¿ all the time. First, it was a 24-hour time frame. Now, it¿s virtually every hour. We need to realise that news often doesn¿t constantly change every hour. Viewers often just want the news of the day, not minute by minute breaking news. Hindi TV news in particular has been caught in the `breaking news¿ trap. It¿s a like a successful Hindi film: if the film works, then that formula is the only one followed. And no one wants to break out.
Barkha Dutt: We need to break out of the overuse of breaking news and `exclusive.¿ Those are more serious charges than all the criticism of 26/11.
Transcribed by Neha Sinha