The coverage of the recent Mumbai terror attacks has drawn flak with news channels coming under the scanner for non-ethical coverage. While everyone was busy slamming Barkha Dutt for giving away defence strategies, indirectly though, to the terrorists, this writer chose to express a totally different opinion.
Dissecting the post line by line reveals the various absurdities present in it.
It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from terrorists – the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. CST is the true icon of Mumbai
The writer starts by slamming media channels for terming the Taj Hotel as the icon of India and then goes on to say that CST is the icon of Mumbai. Is he talking about Mumbai’s icon or India’s icon ?
But the channels would not recognise this. Nor would they recognise the thirty odd dead bodies strewn all over the platform of CST
Noone will. Soon after the attacks, the area around the station is cordoned off and noone except the cops can go in. Moreover, there are more attacks happening nearby in Marine Drive and reports are coming in that some bystanders have been shot at. In such circumstances, he expects the media to ignore the latter, go to CST, show footages of dead bodies strewn around and to sympathise with the mourning kin of the victims when the top priority would be to admit the injured to the hospital.
Even after 60 hours after the CST massacre, no channel has bothered to cover in detail what transpired there.
Day before yesterday’s newspapers have covered the CST incident. Only a few victims were available to comment on the issue as they were admitted to different hospitals.
It is precisely because Taj is the icon of power and not people, that the terrorists chose to strike.
Two years ago the terrorists struck at local trains, lifelines of the same aam admis, whose cause the writer is trying to champion. Aren’t those trains the icons of people ?
When it came to them, the rich shamelessly exhibited their lack of nerves and refused to be resilient themselves. They cry for government intervention now to protect their private spas and swimming pools and bars and restaurants, similar to the way in which Citibank, General Motors and the ilk cry for government money when their coffers are emptied by their own ideologies.
The fact is that Ratan Tata did not call for government intervention but requested citizens to stand together to fight terror. The call for government intervention was not to protect the hotels but for stricter laws on terror. The same call echoed in the nation after the 2006 trains blasts and after the blasts in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Terrorism knows no difference between rich and poor.
Gnani asks the media
where were you when such officers were violating the human rights of Aam Aadmis. Has there ever been any 24 hour non stop coverage of violence against dalits and adivasis of this country?
The writer thinks the entire police force is corrupt because of the presence of a few corrupt cops. And he connects two events which have absolutely no connection between them.
I wonder what this writer would have written when the 2006 train blasts took place. He believes that CST is the place at which the north Indian bhaiyyas, the south Indian madrasis and the east Indian bongs converge. He may even think the Western line has no significance as it serves only Gujarat. As most of the blasts happened in the Western line, he would have written that the blasts should not have got much coverage, instead the problems faced by commuters in the trains should have been highlighted.
The biggest WTF statement:
All channels, including yours, must apologise for not covering the victims of CST massacre, the real mumbaikars and aam aadmis of India
He thinks that the commuters in the trains from CST are the real mumbaikars and the aam aadmis of India. Is it ? What about Sachin Tendulkar ? Is he not a mumbaikar despite the fact that he does not travel by a CST train ? What about the commuters in the writer’s homeland, Chennai, who travel by crowded buses and trains, who were recently put to much hardship due to the Chennai rains that happened at the same time as the terror attacks ? Wouldn’t the tag of aam aadmi fit them as well ?
Filed under: Chennai, Media, News items, WTF, mumbai, tamilnadu | Tagged: Chennai, mumbai, rant, WTF
