I WAS A broadcast journalist in India and when news about the string of terror attacks in Mumbai broke on the evening of November 26, I knew exactly what to expect from the television channels there.

The channels would splash the TV screens with ‘breaking news’ tags in bright red, the anchors would have phone-ins with their reporters from Mumbai, which would become live chats once the Outdoor Broadcast (OB) vans reached the spot(s); some reporters would upload ‘walk-throughs’; they would try to talk to eyewitnesses with timeless questions like “kya hua, kya dekha, aapko kaisa laga, police kitne der se pahunchi” (what happened, what did you see, how did you feel, how late was the police in arriving).

The second wave of the ‘breaking news’ reporting would be led by strings in red and black, with or without a Mumbai backdrop, and carrying bold headlines articulating each channel’s opinion of what the attacks mean to India. They would include labels like ‘India’s 9/11′ or ‘maut ka aatank’ (the scourge of death).

In this phase would come more eyewitness accounts. The crime reporters would go live with information about police and paramilitary movements, the scenes at hospitals, reactions of relatives and, of course, the politicians. More importantly, the channels would take on a nationalistic hue saying things like “India’s pride is attacked”, “Bharat will not submit to terrorism”, and so on. In the absence of any clear, factual information, it will be left to the anchors to mouth generalities or repeat themselves to keep the channels live.

In the third phase, the channels would intersperse spot visuals running in loops with graphics explaining the salient points over a map showing the points of attacks. By this time, the channels would have invited retired policemen, bureaucrats or terrorism experts to studios for live analysis. International reactions to the attacks would be beamed, along with human interest stories and, where possible, phone-ins from people holed up in the buildings where the attacks occurred.

If the attacks continued into the morning, as the ones in Mumbai did, the reporters, including senior journalists flown in overnight from New Delhi, would start a fresh cycle of the same news, with lives and walk-throughs, and give us their opinion of how the counterterrorism operations are going on. The bulk of the day’s reporting would focus on the ‘why’ of the attacks, notwithstanding the absence of any official statements on it.

The news channels, by and large, did not belie my expectations. And that is the point of this article.

Whether it is a story about a stampede in a temple, a boy falling into a manhole, a thief being beaten up by the public, the sensex going up or down, or an act of terrorism, the treatment by channels more or less follows the above routine. If one cares to go through the video archives of channels, one would find a striking similarity in even the words and phrases and visuals used then and now.

Indian journalists have been reporting on conflicts and terrorism for over two decades now, from the militancy in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern states, the low-intensity conflict on the India-Pakistan border, and in recent years, the number of attacks on several Indian cities – even the Indian Parliament – by so-called terrorist groups.

What is missing from reporting on terrorism in India, unfortunately, is the big picture, not only in terms of (a) exhaustive reportage on the event, but also in terms of (b) the geopolitical impact in the global sense.

The first points to the gullibility of the journalists, the second to their lack of awareness. Whether both notions are wrong and such impressions are primarily caused by the newsroom chaos in handling breaking news, it is up to the channels to introspect.

Novice journalists are often told by their seniors that the single mantra in a breaking news scenario is to keep one’s cool. That is the rule practiced more in the breach. Each channel has its own editorial crisis news committee that oversees how breaking news is treated. But somewhere along the way, things snap.

Often it is found there is no one in the newsroom drawing up coverage plans and directing the news team. As a result, the coverage is more of a dish-it-as-it-comes variety even after the first hour of the event. It is the duty of the newsroom seniors to ensure that information is not repeated throughout the news wheel, but is refreshed frequently. It is true that new information is flashed as soon as it comes, but it does not stand out in the general melee of visual loops and continuous, non-informative chats.

The worst aspect of television coverage in India is the abject display of sentiment by journalists. They use adjectives at random, deploring the terrorists and pining for the victims. The channels rave about “nationalism”, the “national spirit” and so on. A sense of an objective assessment of what is happening is, therefore, lost. A glaring example in the Mumbai attacks case is the killing of three senior officers of Mumbai’s anti-terrorism squad. The anchors broke the news with their throats constricted, searching for words like “sacrifice”, “altar of duty” and “honour”. What was lost were simple details like how they died, where they died, what were they doing, etc, which was left for later bulletins.

It is pertinent here to recall what Canadian journalist and media educator Ross Howard said at the 2003 International Roundtable on New Approaches to Conflict Reporting in Copenhagen on the use of sentiment by the media:

“Look at the work of the FOX Television network in the USA. During the invasion of Iraq, newscasters waved and wore American flags, and abandoned all impartiality or fairness by providing a kind of play-by-play home-team coverage of the war between ‘our boys versus the enemy’. It was not professional journalism. Increasingly, this uncritical (and overtly partisan) journalism is contributing to a dangerous American public isolation and insulation from reality on the global scene. Restoring and introducing critical thinking to Western journalism is a partial antidote to the FOX News style of journalism. We need to restore some old standards.”

In the initial hours of the Mumbai attacks, foreign channels were far ahead with factual information, which they culled out from blogs and chat rooms, and strengthened with details from interviews, including with guests at the two hotels attacked by the terrorists. Some foreign channels put the Mumbai attacks in perspective right away by giving a timeline of previous attacks in India to conclude that the latest strikes were actually an escalation in terrorism. They pointed out that unlike in previous cases, the current strikes also involved taking hostage of western nationals. It was a logical deduction on the basis of some good homework, plus locating the new angle of hostage-taking in the current strikes.

A major reason why the Indian channels looked no different the day after the attacks from the night before was sheer lack of information about the ongoing counter-terrorism operation by the security forces in the two Mumbai hotels where the terrorists were holed up with hostages. Broadcast journalism in India is no longer in its infancy and many of its practitioners have reported on conflicts worldwide and therefore, there is no excuse for substandard coverage of such a serious issue.

Secrecy on part of the official agencies and lack of access by journalists both played a role in this blank phase of news on the strikes on the second day. Indian journalists, routinely attuned to covering crime, often find it difficult to cope with such situations. How to keep their channels moving forward in such situations? Lack of knowledge about the country’s anti-terrorism apparatus, the types of agencies and personnel involved, and general information about their operational techniques appear to have hindered the journalists. As a result, uninformed theories, even rumours were reported as news.

Such reportage looks childish. Like, for instance, a channel showed its reporter, standing at the back of one of the Mumbai hotels, telling the audience that the police were clever enough to post themselves at the hotel’s rear so that the terrorists would not be able to escape unnoticed.  Knowledge about the encircling tactics of counter-terrorism agencies as well as the level of determination of the terrorists inside the hotel – would they allow themselves to be captured alive? – would have made the reporter’s chat more meaningful.

Even when channels secure tactical information about an operation, they should have second thoughts about broadcasting it for fear of the data benefiting the attackers. A couple of channels had some such information about the ongoing operation in Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, which they screamed as exclusive news, oblivious to the larger ethical questions involved.

What Indian broadcast journalism should now look for is specialised reporting on terrorism. Treating a terrorist strike story in the same way as a child falling into a manhole will not help, simply because news channels influence people’s perceptions and an unprofessional approach to news dissemination can result in inappropriate fallouts. Also, terrorism is not a domestic issue restricted to the borders of one country and as it is there exists enough evidence of its globally intertwined presence.

The Mumbai strikes were treated more as a local Mumbai event, rather than a national issue. The ‘national’ duty was discharged by becoming inanely sentimental. There was no attempt to see the strikes in the perspective of the global, or even sub-continental, spread of terrorism.

In such situations, journalists should keep in mind they are no longer dealing with local police or petty criminals. They should be able to raise the standard of reporting by making themselves aware of the causes, impact and nexus of terrorism beyond their own country’s borders. This calls for journalists undergoing training programmes in terrorism reporting, on the lines of conflict reporting.

More important than such training is developing a professional attitude when dealing with terrorism and not giving into bouts of sentimentality, which derails the whole purpose of reporting on such events. Not the least, journalists must realise that while it is professional to break the news first, a race to break it can be hazardous in such situations, with accuracy, objectivity and credibility the first victims.

Venkata Vemuri is a senior Indian journalist, currently doing his PhD in the UK. He can be reached at vevemuri@gmail.com

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The media has a crucial role in ensuring a commitment to constitutionalism, pluralism, rule of law, and rights in every democratic society. Would it serve this cause best by an ‘objective’ approach? What the media should do is not chase after hypocritical objectivity, writes Professor

A COMMON AND DANGEROUS illusion, I think, is the explicit or implicit belief that once “settled” or “resolved” by founding generations and embodied in national constitutions and political culture of societies, commitments to civic values of constitutionalism, democracy, pluralism, rule of law and protection of fundamental rights will somehow survive and thrive through subsequent generations, as if encoded in our genes.

A more realistic view, it seems to me, is that these values must be rejuvenated and developed through the constant reenactment of civic discourses about their significance and current relevance by every generation. For instance, founding visions of secularism and pluralism in the United States or India are not sufficiently sustained by constitutional texts and bureaucratic mechanisms, or infused into subsequent generations through civic classes in schools or the mythology of ritualistic politics.

It is not possible for these values to survive the inevitable crises endured by every society unless they are also reaffirmed and nurtured by each generation on its own terms and in relation to the current issues of the day. This is clear, I would argue, from the moral failure of the United States in the face of international terrorism and cyclic tragedies of communal violence in India. The fact the United States inflicts its moral failure on other societies across the world and India endures its own at home are simply different manifestations of the same underlying failure to reenact civic discourses.

A constant appreciation of the reality and urgency of this need is of course the essential prerequisite for its possibility for any society. But since that is likely to be already true of some opinion leaders, the question is about the means and process of raising awareness among wider segments of society, as well as the actual practice of civic discourse.

This is where partnership of the academy and media in enhancing public space for civic discourse is so crucial. To call for this is not to assume that it is totally absent now in any society, or to be naïve about probable limitations of the academy or media constituencies, or underestimate obstacles facing their sustained collaboration. Rather, my call is for a pragmatic yet optimistic engagement and mediation of such difficulties as part of the process of civic discourse itself.

Objectivity: that myth again

On the academy side, there is the deeply entrenched myth of objectivity and neutrality — the notion that scholarship must be detached and unaffiliated with any social or political agenda to be valid and sound from a “scientific” perspective. However, in view of the realities of the world as we have it, assertions of scholarly objectivity and neutrality are simplistic if not hypocritical, because failure to take a position against injustice and human suffering around us everywhere is in fact a taking a position in support of the status quo. At the same time, bad or weak scholarship is not helpful for any cause. So, what we need is good scholarship that is socially engaged, rather than one that is either weak or claims to be socially and politically neutral. I realize that this is not easy to do, but believe it is what we should strive to achieve.

Similar tensions between professional neutrality and risks of bias due to social and political commitments arise in the journalism and media side of the partnership I am promoting here. Professional neutrality is needed for good media work, but that should not be at the expense of commitments to social justice and individual freedom. Once again, we need good journalism that is socially engaged, rather than one that is either biased or claims to be socially and politically neutral. Again, I realize that this is not easy to do, but believe it is what we should strive to achieve.

Beyond these types of “honorable” concerns about balancing quality and social commitments, there are other mundane issues of both the academy and media being implicated in economic and class or other interests that can consciously or unconsciously coopt scholars and journalists. Both communities are dependent on structural power relations in every society. The first step in this regard is to candidly acknowledge these realities of power relations and seek ways of systematically reducing their influence over time.

My objective in this short essay is to begin talking about these types of risk factors and their implications for the constant reenactment of civic discourse. I am not suggesting that partnerships between the academy and the media are the only way to promote these civic values, as the seeds of these commitments, institutions and practice may be planted into the consciousness of our children through early socialization at home, civic education in schools, and traces of all this may filter through our popular culture.

But none of this is likely to be sufficiently strong, at least for the majority of citizens and especially in times of severe security crises or social trauma, like the aftermath of 9/11 in the United States or outbreaks of communal violence in India. Integrating good and socially engaged scholarship into good and socially engaged media work is one way of reinforcing values.

What can academy-media engagement do?

For example, partnerships between the academy and media can promote a more sophisticated and nuanced public debate about the relationship of religion and the state, on the one hand, and religion and politics, on the other.

I have recently attempted to produce what I hope is good and socially engaged scholarship about the paradoxical need to separate religion and the state in my book Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a (Harvard University Press, 2008). The paradox of separation of religion and the state, with recognition and regulation of the unavoidable connectedness of religion and politics can, and should, be mediated through a variety of mechanisms, but cannot be resolved once and for all. This approach makes a difficult but necessary distinction between the institutional continuity of the state and the contingency of politics as reflected in the government of the day. While my argument is applied to Islam and Muslims, I believe that it is also applicable to other religious traditions and communities.

These issues can be explored in strong socially engaged scholarship, but that will have little wider social and political impact unless the media engaged in broader dissemination and debate about whatever the academy has to say on the subject. In terms of my thesis in the book, the media can contribute by facilitating debates about the imperative requirement of the institutional separation of religion and the state in order to ensure the strict religious neutrality of the state and all institutions.

By religious neutrality of the state I mean that official policies, laws and institutions should never favor or disfavor any religious doctrine or practice as such, i.e., by virtue of its being religious or because it is sanctioned by religious authorities. Norms or policy objectives which are accepted by citizens as based on their religious or other beliefs can be proposed for public debate and possible adoption by the state as public policy or law, but that can only be by virtue of “civic reason” and not religious rationale. That is, all state action must be based on reasons that are equally accessible and debatable, accepted or rejected by all citizens, without reference to the religious beliefs held by any of them.

Public debate facilitated by the media can help clarify the practical mediation of the paradox of separation of religion and the state, for instance, in terms of regulating the social and ethical influence of religion on public policy, gender relations, human rights and social justice concerns. Similar clarification and illustration may also be necessary for the refurbishment of the normative and institutional frameworks of transparent and accountable government, political parties and community leaders.

The media can also facilitate the process of broadening and deepening popular understanding and appreciation of the nature and dynamics of secularism and religious/philosophical pluralism, and how to safeguard and promote the critical role of dissent and heresy in a variety of settings.

Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. His research interests include constitutionalism in Islamic and African countries, human rights, and Islam and politics.

Image: Sunil Krishnan

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