Just by the sheer presence of the military trained terrorists, the media tried to portray this event as a "war." This is disgraceful coverage. The spin that they provided to the matter was aweful. Was this a matter of every other journalist trying to create a sizzle from their news to be differentiated or was it just plain reckless journalism? For a discerning audience, this will stand out as one of those events when the media grossly failed.
Everyone has tried to hijack this event to serve their agendas. The right-winged parties have tried to portray it as a war and mentioned that Pakistanis have created this terror attack. The media covered it as Pakistani attack than as "an attack by Pakistan-based militant groups." Some have gone to the extent of drawing parallels between the New York 9/11 event and this one. NYC event was much bigger. With similar vein, these folks want India to go on and bomb-out Pakistan. That's crazy!
Media must understand that we exist in a much multi-lateral world. The bombing out of Afghanistan and Iraq served no good for the US. Besides, that was not a reaction to the 9/11. It was simply an agenda which the neo-conservatives had used to hijack the public attention and create a consensus to declare a war. It had two benefits: guaranteed election win in absence of a strong Democratic rep and continued revenues to the likes of Dick Cheney, who holds controlling interest in Halliburton.
Also, there are anti-political propagandas being spread in the Indian populace. "No security, no tax" is an unintellectual thought. Media perpetrates it further. Anarchy will not help India achieve its dreams. Such tragedies should not de-rail us from our path to prosperity. If an anarchy (due to such anti-political agenda) sets in, I would say the terrorists achieved their final objective of de-railing India.
Mumbai has come out resilient and should stay so. The media must help it rather than obstruct its path to show the world that Mumbai is resilient. Media's code of ethics must be questioned when "India's 9/11" is used by journalists to increase the circulation numbers of their newspapers. On a concluding note, I leave an example of responsible journalism. Check out this article by Suketu Mehta about Mumbai in NYTimes and you will get the idea of where I am coming from. He concludes it nicely -
If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid? So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic.
