Letters to the Hoot: TOI coverage of the tsunami tragedy

I have been appalled by the way the Indian media has been covering the tsunami tragedy. Barring a few reports, most have either sensationalised the story or shown scant regard for the victims` concerns while others have taken it upon themselves to cheer us up. And without doubt, The Times of India wins the award for the best cheerleader of the Indian masses.

While they first `dedicated a masthead to the power of the miracle` (dedicate a masthead? could someone explain that?), on Saturday (New Year`s Day), the Times decided to lead its long-suffering readers to kindly light. Even as a headline in the newspaper admits that `the body count is still rising` (and this after 1.24 lakh lives have been lost), the newspaper had a respected columnist wondering on the front page (lead, that too) when it would be politicially correct to crack jokes again! There is such a thing as getting on with life, but does one need to be so disrespectful about a tragedy? In raising this very important question of when one can attend a party again (the trauma, the horror of not partying), didn`t the newspaper highlight for us again what its real concerns -- if one can call it that -- are?

To say `tomorrow dawns`, or has dawned, does not in any way show fortitude or courage in the face of adversity. It shows callousness, an unwillingness to share the burden of this disaster, a hurriedness to brush this damn thing under the carpet so that we can wear our Armanis and get back to our society parties please. For good measure, the masthead informed us that `Hope Floats`, with a woman and man in swimwear.

None of this is to say that the media should not report positive stories while covering a tragedy. But ideally, those stories should not be spun by imaginative souls enconsced in their ivory towers in New Delhi. An example of a true positive story would be the one that The Hindu carried on how a man in Singapore heard about the tsunami and phoned his village in Tamil Nadu in time to save all the villagers. Aren`t these the true important issues that the media should focus on? If a person in Singapore could warn his fellow villagers back home, how come other governments didn`t or couldn`t? But instead of raising such unpleasant questions and finding answers to them, the biggest media houses are busy telling us to stop brooding and be merry.

Of course, life should go on, but life isn`t all about worrying when it would be -- to quote from the article -- "politically correct to tell a joke again, go to a party, admit you`re enjoying life?" Newspapers should be telling readers how far rescue operations have been successful (Times seems to be woefully lacking in this) and badgering the government about why it has been so miserable on all fronts. Blogs such as ChiensSansFrontiers are filled with tales about bodies still being buried, still rotting and there being not enough wood for even burning corpses.

But Times doesn`t seem to have space for these stories. It`s just way too busy telling readers about the ways of god (a newspaper that espouses the cause of gods, isn`t that rich?). The anchor in the Saturday edition tells us that "it isn`t possible for mere mortals to understand the thinking of the gods" and substantiates it with a box on how there are more births than deaths. Lord, spare us this agony.

Since when did it newspapers start sounding like feel-good, fake spiritual gurus? Since when did it become a newspaper`s job to console readers with a`god is within us` theme? By harping about parties and by putting pin-up girls next to sombre pictures of the victims, the Times is diverting attention from the real issues and doing a great disservice to all those who have lost their lives or suffered personal and property loss in the tragedy.

I would like to keep my name and email id anonymous.

Thank you.