Biased TV coverage

BY s r ramanujan| IN Media Practice | 26/04/2009

The death of a 17-year old student, whatever the circumstances, is certainly tragic and regrettable. For that matter, any death under circumstances which are not normal, will be viewed with concern. Therefore, when Aakriti Bhatia, a student of Modern School in New Delhi died at such a young age, one can understand the agony of her parents, relatives and classmates. Their ire directed against the school management is also not something out of place.

Having said that, can we say that the media, especially the electronic media, behaved with a sense of proportion and responsibility? Certainly not. On a day when the nation was in the thick of 2^nd phase of polling, the national channels were concentrating on the disquiet in one of the New Delhi school premises throughout the day and into their prime bulletins, with mikes thrust on anyone who has something to do with Aakriti. This was the lead story extending anywhere between 10 to 12 minutes in each of the hourly bulletins of almost all the national news channels on Thursday, and there was follow up on Friday as well.

There were interviews with Aakriti’s father, mother, uncle, aunt and classmates and whoever claimed to have known her. The longer the cameras were focused on the young students, the shriller was their voice. The principal was ghearoed. Teachers and students started shouting slogans. There was a demand for the resignation of the principal of the school, Goldie Malhotra. The protestors wanted the principal to be tried for murder. And every bit was covered.

On Friday, too, the media focus was on the delay in the registration of FIR by the Police and the demand for the resignation of the principal of the school. The media did not think that there could be any other dimension to the story except the raw emotions of the relatives and friends of Aakriti. The intensity of the media coverage was such that the Delhi government was forced to order a suo motu enquiry into the incident. 

The facts, as reported in The Hindu and The New Indian Express among the Hyderabad dailies (April 24), were like this. Aakriti Bhatia was an asthmatic and she developed breathing problems while she was in the school. Her mother was informed by the school authorities and she sent a car to take her home. Meanwhile, since Aakriti’s condition deteriorated, she was taken in another car to a hospital. On her way to hospital, she spoke to her mother, but unfortunately before she could reach the hospital she died. Aakriti’s parents were naturally upset and angry and blamed the Principal for negligence and lack of sensitivity. There was a gap of 45 minutes between the time she took ill and the time she was taken to hospital because the school waited for the car sent by her mother.

Aakriti’s school mates alleged that the oxygen mask was taken off deliberately on the way to hospital. In their moment of grief they might have come out with emotional statements and the media should have been discreet enough to use its news judgement in the telecast of bytes rather than trying to sensationalise every bit of the entire episode. It is possible that the mask was taken off since Aakriti wanted to speak to her mother as she was on her way to hospital and that might have proved fatal for Aakriti. One is not sure. Only an enquiry can bring out the truth.

But the media did not want to wait as it could not resist the temptation to sensationalise the tragic event. There are government schools which lack the basic facilities like pucca building, drinking water, toilets etc, leave alone emergency medical care. Except for dealing with them in occasional documentaries, does the media bother about them? Do they bother about the malnourished students in government schools? Had Aakriti been in a distant state like Kerala, Assam or Orissa, would media care to highlight the event in the same manner? When will our national media get out of its Delhi-centric approach to news judgement?

There will be no quarrel with the media if it has reported the event on Monday and also followed it up when there was commotion in the school when students, parents and teachers disrupted the press meet organised by the school like any other city story. But that was not to be. Defying all sense of proportion, the entire electronic media, as was pointed out in the Hoot, lived off this story for two days. May be, it will continue for some more days, one can’t say. 

Prestigious schools like Modern School will have at least a couple of thousands of students and one cannot expect academic institutions to function like emergency medical centres. The criticism will hold good had it been a hospital. Schools are not equipped to take care of medical emergencies and at worst the Aakriti episode can be an error of judgement.  It is not uncommon for students to fall sick while at school like stomach upsets, fever etc and the class teacher attends to such problems as the situation warrants depending on the medical history of the individual student.

In the case of Aakriti, was there no accountability for her parents? When she is a known asthmatic, the parents also should have ensured that she always carried emergency medical aid like inhalers, nebulisers etc which would have given her instant relief. One does not know whether she carried such medications with her and did not use them. There are two other points. It has been reported that she had had an attack a couple of days before, should she have been sent to school?  And did the parents actually send a car without accompanying it when the daughter was in a medical emergency? How many parents would do that? But then it is politically incorrect for TV channels to criticize parents when they covet viewers. School administrations are a more saleable target.

While criticising the media for its over-reaction and sensationalisation of news, we can’t ignore an emerging trend in public life these days, indicative of growing intolerance and hyper-sensitivity to issues that are quite trivial.  It is difficult to say for sure whether it feeds on the media practitioners tendency to give undue importance to stories with a view to  sensationalise them or whether the media is only reflecting such tendencies. It is a chicken and egg story.