The memories of a gun-and-grenade-toting killer army, spraying hundreds of innocents with bullets, lobbing grenades at will setting ablaze the rooftop of the Taj Mahal hotel
Anil Wanvari
The memories of a gun-and-grenade-toting killer army, spraying hundreds of innocents with bullets, lobbing grenades at will setting ablaze the rooftop of the Taj Mahal hotel ablaze, will probably never leave us. Thanks to news television.
But as a country, we wanted to know. And news channels offered us updates, taking us to the scene of the dastardly acts. And while they did, they exposed their own lack of preparedness to handle crises, apart from the inabilities of the government, army and police.
The fault also lies with systemic failure and understanding of crisis media management. The lack of planning showed. The sheer number of news channels, probably outnumbers that of any other country.
Did anyone have a strategy on how to handle and manage media? It was alarming to see that no press briefing room was set up by the authorities and sound bytes were given by senior army officials and police out in the open.
TV cameramen followed almost every move that the commandos made. News editors carried those images, but could they have been done so in a delayed manner, say with a 5-10 minute time lag right from day one so that terrorists may have not been able to keep a tab on what was being planned as has been alleged?
Could the reporters have asked more pertinent questions? Is there enough training being given to them on how to cover crises such as war or terror attacks? News channels must understand how similar terrorists attack took place the world over, and how they were handled.
Crises and terror management experts must have been brought in. News channels have been hard pressed for experienced journalistic talent, and hence have been putting relatively inexperienced journalists on the field to handle tough situations. That is permissible only if enough training is given to them.
Clearly, a code of ethics and policy needs to be put in place. Going by the lack of focus of the government on anti-terrorism measures, a terrorist strike in another city may not be too far away.
The author is editor-in-chief and CEO of Indiantelevision.com
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