Misplaced anger: How media became punching bag for doing its duty — reporting Delhi riots

If someone was killed while being forced to chant slogans, it is the media’s job to report it and not sanitise it to suit someone’s sense of political correctness.

People pelted stones and set vehicles on fire as violence in Northeast Delhi escalated on Monday | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when there is a terrible situation, there is a tendency to shoot the messenger. And in the communal riots that shook parts of northeast Delhi this week, of course, the messenger is the media.

Blackout, spineless, paid, grovelling – these were the words used for the media and bandied about with ease in the last few days, and frankly, I am sick and tired of it.

First, let’s take the word ‘blackout’. After the Narendra Modi government diluted Article 370, a blackout was imposed in Kashmir in August 2019 – when people in the region literally had no idea what was going on around them. That is not something that can be said of the violence in Delhi. Since last Sunday night, when news broke that the police had lathi-charged anti-CAA protesters at Hauz Rani, after which there were reports of violence in northeast Delhi Monday, the mainstream and non-mainstream media houses have kept their focus on the violence as it grew from what was first seen as a clash between CAA protesters and supporters to full-blown communal riots.

Why blame the media?

Did the media also focus on US President Donald Trump’s India visit? Yes, absolutely, as it should.

But let me be very clear, you would not know what you now know about the Delhi riots if it wasn’t for the journalists, from most newspapers, TV channels and websites, going to riot-hit areas, risking their lives, getting roughed up and even badly thrashed in the course of their job. So, when people complain about a blackout, I really wonder what they read or watch.

I asked a few friends who told me they found the lack of media coverage appalling, or they were told by friends outside Delhi that there was no information coming out about the riots. I found this difficult to believe, so I probed a bit further and got some vague mumblings about how they were “not talking about any specific media outfit but making a general point”.

Either someone was very annoyed that one rag of a newspaper carried the story lower down on its page, or that in the maybe 10 minutes they watched a news channel, the riots weren’t mentioned.

A friend in Mumbai told me that the fact that Seelampur had been on the boil for months should have been reported as context. I sent him articles published by multiple mainstream newspapers from December on violence in Seelampur. He then said that no one outside Delhi would remember or even know where Seelampur is. How, I ask, is this the media’s fault?

Another friend shared a link to an article on the riots in a well-known US newspaper, saying this is the kind of accurate coverage missing in India. On reading it, I found absolutely nothing unique to it that the local media didn’t have – every horrific incident and every quote from a survivor was something that the Indian media had been reporting since 24 February. When asked, she said she had heard that Indian websites were being asked to take down content, but she didn’t know which ones. Later, she pointed me to Hotstar blocking the Modi episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. At this point, I just want to remind everyone that Hotstar is a private entertainment entity, not a news website or channel.

Responsible criticism

What Delhi has been through this week is a communal riot. Religion is the reason this happened, whether you want to admit it or not, so why the hell should that be hidden away like a dirty secret?

Is every media outfit responsible? Certainly not. But if you watch and read only the ones that are crap, then the information you get will also be crap. Can the media do better? Of course, always. Can you also criticise more responsibly so that we genuinely do better, instead of just calling every media house spineless, paid, grovelling and whatever else, just because it sounds trendy? When you tell us it’s a clash, no it’s a riot – you also need to understand that any good media house has deliberated and chosen its words carefully, based on fact and not sentiment. Please do also choose your words carefully.

This article has been updated to reflect @theworkplacedoodler’s clarification on the Instagram post on the role of media during the Delhi riots.