By Shailesh Kapoor
It’s 12 days since the Uri attacks on September 18. The incident, and its aftermath, which included speeches at the UN General Assembly and the surgical strikes late Wednesday night, has meant that newsrooms across the country are in the middle of their most active and substantive period in a long time. 2016, in particular, has been a slow news year.
With the exception of the Pathankot attacks in January and the state elections in May, rest of the news has been fairly routine. In a multi-channel scenario, accentuated by the presence of countless digital news platforms, this meant that news had to be created out of thin air. The need to do that comes with its own share of theatrics and hyperbole, because after all, who’s interested in soft presentation of soft news!
But the last 12 days have been different. It’s like those old times when you go to a news channel because you actually want to watch something that’s of interest to you. Historically, news has been most purposeful genre on television, across the world. News viewers have had an imagery of being learned and intelligent, and even if stereotypically so, a lot older than the average populace.
But across the world, over the last two or three decades, the definition of news has evolved to include things that are more socially relevant and have the potential of becoming hot discussion topics, even if they lack depth of impact over a period of time. This is probably the only definition of news the millennials understand.
I’ve been watching the coverage over the last 12 days with great interest. How does a media that is so used to serving news is a flashy, dumbed-down package to appeal to the vast fringes of news viewing respond when it has to cover something several notches more important than what it “covers†day in day
By and large, there has been pleasant surprise on offer. Restraint and maturity are not words you would associate with the Indian media (or most media across the world today), but we saw glimpses of that over the last 10 days. The government at the Centre played an important enabling role here, by being direct and decisive in its communication and action. If we leave out the silly side story fueled by MNS, related to Pakistani talent in India, the overall coverage has an air of urgency and responsibility around it. For the first time in what seems like forever, the messaging is consistent across channels, anchors and most political groups, barring a few that are left-aligned.
It’s not as if the DNA has changed, though. Within three days of Uri, we had Pakistani guests on a few channels, including on The Newshour. And we had Barkha Dutt wondering, at least on Twitter, why they are being called. Arnab Goswami continued to dare “some channels†who have acting as peace doves to come out of their proverbial hiding. Name each other, can’t you? It would be a lot more interesting that way.
Clearly, the story around Pakistan is still developing. It may take, even months, before it finds its way in the soft news section. The real test of our newsmen and newswomen is still to come. We saw during 26/11 how the media was just not prepared to handle an issue of national importance. Have they learnt their lessons? 2016-17 may just give us the answer.