Living with the news of child death/ November 12, 2006

News for us is like the waves in the ocean. A wave comes once and goes back to the ocean leaving no permanent imprints. So do the events and the incidents, which see the front page of the newspapers and headlines in the television news and after a while, go into oblivion. I wonder if they leave any impression on us at all or not!

When we are busy with the Film Festival, let us just switch on our memories and remind us of a news item ‘17 babies die in a city hospital for children’ that rocked the headlines a week back. I know we blew the incident out of proportion (for the right cause though!). I saw the flash on one of the regional channels and rushed to BC Roy Hospital for Children. None of us found any family members of the children who died. The authority fed us with the information all the babies came in a critical condition and there was no question of negligence on their part! Normally 4/5 babies die daily in that hospital. Factually there was nothing wrong in the information passed on by the ‘media-friendly’ superintendent of the BC Roy Hospital for Children.

Interestingly the non-story got a twist when the chief minister decided to visit the hospital with his colleague in the health department. I think he didn’t have much work to do on that Saturday evening and successfully did the damage-control by visiting the hospital himself on the first day the news broke (I never saw him reacting so fast!). Never mind the fact the media persons were thrown out of the hospital premises during his visit.

We carried the story for two days. Some political parties tried to gain some mileage from the incident, the health minister ordered investigation and then we forgot it on the third day as usual (dipping down the ocean of news). If you take any interest and follow the mortality rate in the BC Roy, you can again get another story in a few days ‘20 babies die in two days’!

It is true this shocking figure hits us occasionally, but the figure is really ‘normal’. Even if we accept Superintendent’s words and consider it to be normal, real stories still remain at the back. Nobody answered in public what is taking so long to upgrade the infrastructure of the hospital with Sourav Ganguly donating a lump sum amount to build a new block nearly two years back? None can deny the fact there is lack of infrastructure in this government-run hospital for children. This kind superficial journalism at least help us to ring the alarm bell, may be, once a while!

USE AND THROW /November 05, 2006

Last week I had been to a small district town of Orissa, Dhenkanal. The first thing you notice about this hilly district headquarters is its serenity, beautiful landscape and mystic character. I spent a whole year in this town studying journalism in the eastern India campus of Indian Institute of Mass Communication on the lap of the hills.

For a first time visitor, the place would really look attractive at the first glance enthusing a feeling of peace at your heart. But the moment it comes to your mind that you will have to stay here for a whole year, your head may refuse the idea. The place is bereaved of any source of entertainment. It doesn’t have any shopping mall, any proper cinema hall (let alone any multiplex), any disco theque or a good restaurant. So it is difficult for anyone coming from a metro city to accept this ‘handicapped town’. We all had the same problem. It takes time to adapt. Somehow we managed it and lived happily adapting ourselves according to the demand of the hostel life.

But some had problem with the taste of the food, lack of entertainment and every little thing. I had a batch mate (not mentioning the name for obvious reason!!) who had food with her hand/fingers for the first time in her life after failing to get a spoon at a picnic in a nearby village. She sat on a playground to have lunch on banana leaf. She was frantically looking for mineral water in that remote village not to drink but to wash the plate made out of banana leaf!

But this time I came across some interesting incidents. A father took away his daughter from IIMC within three days of admission. The reasons: the rooms weren’t air-conditioned, his daughter had to wash her own plates herself after every meal. He saw a lizard in his room where he was allowed to stay for a few days as guest. (Thank heaven he didn’t see the snakes that coexist in the campus and the legendary Black Panther that one of our darwans once saw!!!)

Adding to it was the height of inadaptability. This time some boys are using use-and-throw plates for their having their meals!!! The reason: they cant or don’t like to wash their own utensils after having their food. We couldn’t think of it at our time!!

These may be little things but what surprise us is that they are supposedly the aspiring journalists of a country called India. Are we all future journalists driven by the idea of ‘Page 3’ journalism only? I pity for them.

THE GREAT INDIAN WEDDING IS OVER????

The great Indian wedding is over!! The days of frenzy and fanfare are gone. I feel relieved. It was suffocating to see all the news taking a backseat to the wedding coverage (covered coverage). When I look back upon the last one week, as a journalist, I feel pity for my profession. The run up to the big wedding had seen stories being aired or printed on the preparations of the wedding. The requisitions started pouring in from the head office, "fill us up with stories from your city on the Ash-Abhi wedding". In Kolkata we got our very own Sharbari Dutta designing the wedding suits for Abhishek Bachhan, covered. Some people covered the vermilion for Aishwarya Rai going from the city's Kalighat and a few more. It was fine till then. We sent occasional stories on the wedding preparations. In most of the cases the hungama over this marriage was limited to the entertainment bulletins and the stories went as the tail ender of the bulletin.

But I started feeling suffocated on the wedding day. The other day I heard my editor giving our entertainment chief a free run on going live on the wedding. I could see the fate of the "news" the day after. And a day before wedding the hungama started in all the channels. The reporters standing outside Bachchan's bungalow started giving "gyan" on the wedding. Unfortunately none could get any exclusive visuals of what was happening inside the bunglow. It was all depending on the glimpses of the Bachchans and their guests and fed by "sources" the reporters went gaga over the event. And here I tell you something very interesting. In such cases none would contradict or send any rejoinder to what you say based on your sources. You may confidently say Aishwarya is wearing yellow saree and the ornaments. None would contradict you as none could see Ash, including, probably, your sources.

So the drama began since morning. Some senior once told me on such days and occasions break some big news and do somethinglese, the channel would take your story and you could make your mark. I try to follow that advice. So did I on the wedding day. It worked initially. I broke a news at 2 in the afternoon. It went top in the headlines. But another breaking news came in at around 3: 30 pm and my story was pushed back and then the barati came out and my story went into oblivion. Everyone got busy with the wedding. How Abhishek came out of his bunglow, how Amitabh led the barati, how Amar Singh took the control of the situations and all the details came out of the reporters standing outside the Bachchan's house. I really felt how stupid we are. In fact it was nothing but stupidity. The cameras couldn't capture anything beyond the guests getting off the cars and walking into the house and coming out of the bunglow and whisking away.

It's not that sometimes I also fall prey to such stupidity. Being a journalist of Kolkata, I also need to go to Ganguly's residence to give live link to the studio and show how the cars are coming out and going behind the iron gate. But I must thank Bachchans for at least arranging for some snacks for the media persons waiting outside his home to cover the wedding. We don't get this minimum reception anywhere.

But it is not the end of it all. We know the columnists would start writing about the craziness and enthusiasm the media covered the event with and, like me, would call it stupidity and mention about hundreds of serious news that could have been covered at that time. The counter argument remains: it is the demand of the viewers. And I also subscribe to this view. It is the viewers and the readers who want to know about the lifestyle of the celebrities and more the celebrities maintain secrecy, more we are interested to know. We Indians in general are 'gossip lovers' and we always love to act as a peeping Tom. Be it in our neighbourhood or be it the glam world, we behave in the same way. And the media follows the taste of the average Indians. It is as simple as that. You call it business or name it anythingelse. But can media take a chance to change the taste of the viewers and readers? That is a separate debate kept for some other time.