Reporting Terror

Swarajya's slander in Nagaland

BY VIKAS KUMAR| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |09/04/2018

An amazing article accusing former CM T.R. Zeliang and the Baptist Church of Nagaland of funding terror drew a threat of legal action and a denial of Swarajya's claims from the Army.

  

A hero’s welcome for Lt Col Purohit

BY JYOTI PUNWANI| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |01/09/2017

Never has a terror accused released on bail received the kind of welcome Times Now and Republic TV accorded to Malegaon blast accused Lt Col Purohit.

 

NDTV on Salafism

BY JYOTI PUNWANI| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |13/10/2016 ?Two recent editions of Truth vs Hype try to link the growth of Salafism among Muslims with the appeal of ISIS to a few young Muslims.

 

French terror 

BY VIKRAM JOHRI| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |08/01/2015 

The Charlie Hebdo massacre will re-ignite the long running debate over free speech versus Muslim beliefs.

 

Cracking the Ishrat Jahan encounter

BY Rana Ayyub| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |17/02/2014

Four days of extensive travelling, late night phone calls from 'safe numbers', persistence, and the fifth day was fruitful.

 

Constructing truth for the street

IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/02/2013 

This difference between limited facts of a particular event, and a set of facts that reveal context, also marks the difference between sensationalism and news,

 

Parroting the police version 

IN OPINION |29/10/2012

The Delhi Special Cell's dubious claims on terror continue to be gospel truth for the English press.

 

Media escorts Rajkhowa home

IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/01/2011

As freed ULFA chairman Arabind Rajkhowa returned home to a rousing reception and intense coverage by the media, veteran journalists recalled a time when such reportage would have been frowned upon.

 

Should journalists apologise?

IN OPINION |22/09/2010

Are reporters, who fall for police and IB plants and happily give chapter and verse on the lives of individuals suspected of terror links, bound to apologise if they are proved wrong?

 

Militant handover morphs into saas bahu soap opera

BY A correspondent| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |29/12/2009

Critics believe this dramatization by the three television channels only glorifies the ULFA by negating the misdeeds of and killings by the outfit in the past 30 years of their ?armed struggle for sovereignty?.

 

ULFA chief tries new tack

BY A correspondent| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |24/12/2009

Paresh Baruah uses a page one anchor series in Amar Asom to try and rouse the Assamese masses to build a greater Assamese society, and help Bangladeshis assimilate.

 

Making amends

IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |16/09/2009 

On September 16 the Indian Express reprinted the letter Gautam Navlakha actually sent in response to the paper's editorial called Batla and Ishrat. (See the item 'Two letters' on the Hoot.) And apologized for incorrect editing and printing...

 

Two letters

BY Gautam Navlakha| IN OPINION |13/09/2009

What the Indian Express carried in its Letter of the Week column bore little resemblance to the letter the writer had sent.

 

Media complicity in Mumbai terror 

BY Sunil Adam| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |07/12/2008

The visual media and terrorism have a mutually reinforcing relationship, which needs to be broken to the detriment of the latter,

 

Hotel Taj: Icon of whose India?

BY Gnani sankaran| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |02/12/2008

Resilience was another word that annoyed the pundits of news channels and their patrons this time. But the same channels celebrated resilience when bombs went off in trains and markets killing and maiming the Aam Aadmis.

 

Crime and the media

BY KALPANA SHARMA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/11/2008

We in the media need to seriously interrogate our approach towards crime and justice and ensure that we are not abetting the former and negating the latter,

 

Manufacturing Hindutva?

BY Padmaja Shaw| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |13/10/2008

The entire story is a web of self-incriminating confessions from the accused that render any need for fair trial that all citizens of India are entitled to, unnecessary.

 

The trouble with relying on police sources

BY Jyoti Punwani| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |24/09/2008

These days, two kinds of sensational events dominate our media: bomb blasts and large scale mob violence. But the difference in the way the media has handled them is glaring.

 

The uses and misuses of photographs 

BY Sadanand Menon| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |27/09/2008

The sceptics wondered how it came about that the three arrested suspects came to be in possession of brand new rumaals, which they could readily pull out of their pockets to cover their faces,

 

Tackling Hindu and Islamic terror the media way

IN MEDIA PRACTICE |20/09/2008 

Can violence that takes lives, destroys communities, and terrorises people be treated differently because different groups are involved?

 

The Sensation Trap

BY DUJ| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |11/10/2008

By and large, the press has forsaken the use of certain prefixes such as ‘alleged’ and ‘suspected’. Most newspapers described those killed and arrested in Delhi as terrorists.

 

Creating Tauqeer

BY JYOTI PUNWANI| IN MEDIA PRACTICE | 14/10/2008

Will the same fate meet Maria’s find, the latest mastermind Mansur Peerbhoy, the `techie’ from Pune with a salary of Rs 19 lakh?

 

 

A critique of Vamsee Juluris lament

BY KISHORE BUDHA| IN MEDIA PRACTICE | 27/12/2008

In a way we should be disappointed by Juluris lament and critique. What did he expect?

 

How the West lost us

BY Vamsee Juluri

| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |14/12/2008  

If the American media rushed to internationalize 9/11, they seemed to be in an equal hurry to domesticize 26/11, as if "terror" is something that happens regularly in India, like water problems, or sly airport touts.

 

Media complicity in Mumbai terror

BY Sunil Adam| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |07/12/2008

The visual media and terrorism have a mutually reinforcing relationship, which needs to be broken to the detriment of the latter,

 

After bullets, media terrorises Jadhav

BY Prasanna DZore| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/12/2008

Jadhav¿s face trembles with pain as the camera crew of a television channel switches on the light mounted on their camera. He is traumatised by the way the media is harassing him to repeat the same thing again and again.

 

Three days of Mumbai terror reporting

BY ANJALI DESHPANDE and S.K. PANDE| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/12/2008

The media behaved as if the country was so terrified it came to a standstill. As if Madhya Pradesh did not go to polls, as if Delhi did not vote, as if a former Prime Minister, V P Singh, did not pass away

 

On the record: Mumbai and media coverage

BY Barkha Dutt| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/12/2008

Why did we interview waiting relatives who staked out at the hotels as they waited for news on their families and friends? Quite simply, because they WANTED to talk.

 

The mayhem in Mumbai: readers react 

BY Hoot readers| IN OPINION |29/11/2008 

Was it necessary to provide 24-hour coverage of the hostage crisis? Did it do anything for the viewers, the security forces, the helpless hostages, Mumbai city or the nation…?

 

Those mythical bomb blast deaths 

BY Nava Thakuria| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/10/2008 

How did the media report deaths in the Agartala bomb blasts when nobody died,

 

Some hard questions

BY DUJ| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/10/2008

Although all newspapers and TV channels used the same source, the police, they differed in the basic facts reported about the police encounter in Jamia Nagar.

 

Bombs defused in newsrooms

BY Shahina KK| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |05/09/2008

The blast which occurred on 24th August hardly found even a single column space in the leading news papers like The Hindu and Times of India, next day.

 

Did TOI go overboard?

BY hoot| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |04/06/2008 

The Times of India, Ahmedabad ran a series alleging that a newly appointed police commissioner had links with a Dawood man. It then ran an sms poll asking whether people wanted him to continue as commissioner.

 

Presuming innocence

BY Mukul Kesavan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |07/04/2008

It might have helped if reporters had remembered that Hafeez Hussein and Khalid… were, first and last, fellow citizens of a free republic, innocent till they were proven guilty,

 

ULFA leader writes, readers respond

BY A correspondent| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |05/01/2010

it is intriguing that readers have reacted to a top-rung militant leader’s write-up and were bold enough to express their views without any fear. Excerpts from letters Assamese readers wrote in response to Paresh Barua’s series in Amar Asom.

 

Shedding tears for Haneef

BY Dasu Krishnamurthy| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |01/08/2007

What ordeal is the Deccan Herald talking about? Haneef was in jail for 26 days. How long have the accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts been in jails

 

Will ‘caution’ help fight terror?

BY ramanujan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |20/07/2006

The columnist was clear. The authorities were creating an atmosphere of suspicion against a target group (read Muslims)

 

Overdoing the resilience bit

BY s r ramanujan| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |16/07/2006

After suffering seven terror strikes in a span of three years, if Mumbaikars are "resilient", is it a positive sign?

 

Indo-Pak media perspectives on terror

BY mannika| IN MEDIA MONITORING |25/11/2005

July showed that the media mindset of both Pakistan and India was to give more coverage to militant/terrorist attacks if they were associated with the west or with Kashmir.

 

Delhi’s 29/10’: terror in the capital

BY subarno c| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |07/11/2005 

The emphasis seemed to be on global solidarity rather than on reporting voices of the affected in that area.

 

Taking a stand

IN MEDIA PRACTICE |03/11/2005

Whether on the Delhi blasts, or on the train tragedy or on the Volcker report, most newspapers had a pusillanimous response.

 

The media’s hand in masking identities

BY S R Ramanujam| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |24/07/2005

How do we then identify those who adopt violence as their religion for perceived injustice to religion? Simply call them "Asians"!

 

Missing victims

IN MEDIA PRACTICE |11/07/2005

By not including victims from other ethnic groups in news footage the London blasts, the news channels failed to employ critical thinking.

 

Terror in London

BY Subarno Chattarji| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |16/07/2005

The contours of the discussion in the West are tied to defending the moral and political primacy of the West. The Arab media has almost universally condemned the attacks but is more reluctant to absolve the West of all responsibility.

 

Untoo, the police and the press

IN MEDIA PRACTICE |15/06/2005 

 

Assam media changes its attitude to Ulfa

IN REGIONAL MEDIA |03/09/2004

After the Independence Day blasts which killed civilians, the press in Assam turns against the Ulfa.

 

Three Tears For Terrorism

IN MEDIA PRACTICE |13/08/2004

This kind of media selectivity suggests that victims of terrorism have no families to be interviewed.

 

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The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.                   

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.                 

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