When will we ever learn? Or, will we ever learn? Do we even want to learn?
The short answer to all three questions is ‘no’ for much of the news media, be it TV or YouTube news channels, influencers, or online newspaper portals. When it comes to horrific crimes (mostly against women), the coverage is sensational, speculative and insensitive. And never-ending.
The Supreme Court and high courts can criticise and caution the media for such coverage as they have repeatedly done in the past, at least since the murders of Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj in 2008.
But many news organisations have developed a hearing problem when it comes to crime—the Supreme Court on 20 August 2024 was “shocked’’ that the identity of the Kolkata trainee doctor recently raped and murdered had been revealed and her photo was making the rounds on social as well as the news media.
Go back in time, and r moonead these stories from ThePrint on the TV news coverage of the death of actress Sridevi in ‘maut ka bathtub’ (Aaj Tak, February 2018) and actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide. In the latter case, anchors commented: “Filmon ka Dhoni asal zindagi mein out kaise (How can reel-life Dhoni get out in real life)?”
Then fast forward to the present: In the Kolkata rape-murder case, every single detail of the injuries, as noted in the postmortem report, has been made public by news media – without a moment’s thought for her self-respect, the feelings of her loved ones or viewer sentiments. Imagine a young child watching TV news and asking her mother: “Mama, what is thick liquid in the genitals?”
Look at this screen grab from a leading news channel, India Today:
It’s not just TV news channels that are lurid — print media could be equally graphic. Here is a story on the same news organisation’s news portal: No injury is too gruesome to leave out, not even “…deep wound in her private parts”, “perverted sexuality..”
Meanwhile, Hindustan Times continues to run these headlines: “Kolkata Murder Highlights’’, “Highlights’’, really? Rather like the Paris Olympics?
It also suggested a “sinister plot” behind the doctor’s death without any factual evidence.
There’s also this from Mint, a respected business paper/portal that freely speculates on accused Sanjay Ro’s private life: “Media reports claimed that Kolkata Police found porn clips on his mobile phone, and his neighbours claimed that he (Roy) had married multiple times…”
And finally, close your eyes and listen to this report from ABP News: Besides wrongly identifying the “151 gm of genital liquid”, it recreates the sequence of events that resulted in the 14 injuries from the victim’s viewpoint and accused: “She tried to rescue herself, but he was too heavy…he was drunk and like an animal… he didn’t even know when his hands went to her neck…’’
Crime sells
Even as this is being written, news media continues its coverage of the doctor’s rape and murder — the courts’ pronouncements, live telecasts of the protests across the country, and in Kolkata, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigations, the doctor’s parents, etc.
Newspapers have also found ways to keep the story on the front page: On 22 August 2024, they published a report on a similar crime from 2007 at a Delhi hospital.
Crime is covered extensively in news media for the very good reason that crime sells – many of us enjoy a good murder mystery or a bizarre theft. There’s also a case to be made for the media exposing the crimes and criminals to prevent such incidents from being repeated or to force the authorities into action.
It’s the nature, quality and scale of the coverage that bothers us. Again, the current obsession with the ‘Kolkata horror’ (CNN News 18) is not new.
In 2008, a study by Centre for Media Studies (CMS) on the Aarushi Talwar-Hemraj murder reported: “Six channels beamed news and special programmes on the double murder for 39.30 hours out of a total 92 hours prime time — from 19:00 hrs to 23:00 hrs — between May 16 and June 7.’’
Move to Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide and a study of 130 news sources showed: “Rajput’s case got more than 500 stories a day when he passed away (14 June 2020). In July and most of August, these numbered between 500 and 750 a day.”
And what did the coverage give us? Rajput died by suicide on a Sunday morning; by evening, channels had procured photographs of his body on his bed—they emblazoned the colour of the cloth around his neck (red) in their headlines.
One former NDTV reporter recalled: “Rhea Chakraborty has been declared guilty by the “9 o’clock judges” (on TV prime time)…Before her, the same set of people had condemned other film industry personalities and had accused them of neglecting, sidelining and mentally tormenting the actor…’’
Rhea was accused of everything from drug peddling to money-making to abetting the suicide. She was even jailed.
International media, perplexed by what it saw, wrote about it.
The Aarushi-Hemraj case became such a sensation it was made into the film Talvar (2015) but not before most of the news media had made it into a daily soap opera. We were fascinated — not so much by the mystery of the crime, but by the inventiveness of reporters, especially on TV. Many channels, including India TV, reconstructed the sequence of the events.
Reporters wore trench coats and hats and went prowling along rooftops looking for clues. They walked through the Talwar home, trampling on evidence.
And they found the Talwar parents guilty before charged. This article gives you a glance into the coverage: It would have been laughable—a Peter Seller Pink Panther—if it hadn’t been so tragic.
We’ve been told too much
In all these instances, we know what the victims look like because media had revealed their identities. In fact, we know too much.
The Kolkata rape-murder coverage has taken a political turn – a BJP-TMC battle. However that doesn’t change the fact that the victim, like Shraddha Walkar in 2022 (remember her murder?), Talwar, Sushant Singh Rajput, and less-known victims of terrible crimes deserved more sensitive handling by the media.
Some of the reporters had moral scruples, but they managed to brush them aside. In the Kolkata case, the ABP News reporter claimed he was revolted while giving viewers all the details of the murder, but that didn’t stop him. An India Today anchor was equally disturbed by the postmortem reports she’d been sharing, but she said: “You must know what she (the victim) had to go through…’’
A prime-time anchor on Times Now expressed her revulsion at the recent sexual crimes in Bengal and Maharashtra’s Badlapur where two young girls were molested: “People are disgusted on how the system works… why are we pay taxes if the system is so broken…?’’ she asked.
The author tweets @shailajabajpai. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)