Reporting Gujarat: how objective was media coverage?
No balanced approach by vernacular dailies
Gobind Thukral
 

Coverage on Gujarat carnage in both print and electronic media has attracted immense attention. The issue had become so important the Editor's Guild had to rush a team to make an on-the-spot assessment and suggest corrective measures. While the team found the vernacular Press partly responsible for sowing the seeds of discord and helping the communal virus to spread fast, it had good words for the national Press and major TV networks.

Interestingly, the BJP Government and a section of its police and other officers were more critical of the national Press and ignored, despite available powers under the law, rumour mongering by some newspapers in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and other places. Clearly, this suited their interests and showed their indoctrination to a particular ideology of Hindutva.

With television presenting instant powerful images, the role of the media has assumed greater significance. News is shown as it happens. But the media can colour the events by using them or by not using them at all. By being selective, it often misinforms and acts as a propaganda tool. What gives the media a complex dimension is the daily exposure of multiple items in juxtaposition. Nevertheless, the media remains a major source of information, particularly in a violent situation.

How did the local Press presented the riots to the readers? Has the print media in any way aggravated the relentless tensions through inflammatory or communal reportage? These questions bother all right thinking people.

We are all aware what the national Press reported; we have also watched the reports of major national TV networks. But what were the local papers reporting? The role of Gujarati newspapers like Sandesh (Baroda), Gujarat Samachar (Baroda) and Gujarat Today were analysed for the purpose. Concerned citizens, Shanti, painstakingly collected data for the study.

Sandesh crossed all limits of responsible journalism. Its major characteristic was to feed on the prevalent anti-Muslim prejudices of its Hindu readership and provoke it further by sensationalising and distorting news. Sandesh used headlines to provoke, communalise and terrorise people.

Most reports concerning the post-Godhra violence usually begin with a preceding sentence, 'In the continuing spiral of communal rioting that broke out as a reaction to the 'demonic/barbaric, Godhra incident...'. The denunciatory adjectives used liberally to describe the Godhra incident were strikingly absent while reporting subsequent killings. Introductory statement reinforces an hierarchy in the two sets of crimes. This hierarchy has been established by the VHP and even Chief Minister Narendra Modi when he justified the genocide in Newtonian terms. This brings to the fore the supposed objectivity of Sandesh as a newspaper. Repetitive justification of the post-Godhra violence serves to neutralise the horror and injustice of the subsequent violence.

The most horrific acts of violence were repeatedly sensationalised with the use of a few devices. For example, large bold letters were used as headlines particularly when referring to gruesome acts like the burning alive of people. Photographs of burnt, mangled bodies were a common feature on the front page or the last page which usually carries local news. Most colour photos have the colour of red for blood accentuated in a gory, visual fashion. Alternatively, photographs of militant, trishul wielding karsevaks were splashed across the front page. Both kinds of photographs serve to instill fear or terror and to provoke intense passions and mutual hostility between the two communities.

Similarly, the reports of Gujarat Samachar (Baroda) did not give the sources of information in its reports. For instance, the front- page report on March 6 was apparently based on a conversation the reporter had with the Railway Police Force personnel. The way these reports have been presented is questionable. This is the day when the top story on the last page is about how gradually the situation is returning to normalcy.

A report on March 16 describes incidents in Machchhipith as if Muslims were the culprits. The report 'Private firing on Rambhakts' described the whole incident as pre-planned. Nowhere has it mentioned if the Ram Dhun procession was taken out with the police permission and what were the conditions laid out by the police for taking out such a procession. The role played by the mob in the procession was not mentioned. In a Sunday supplement, an article by Bhalchandra Jani justified the demand for Ram Janmabhoomi temple.

Gujarat Today is an 11-year old Gujarati daily with a circulation of 70,000. Published by the Lokhit Prakashan Trust of Ahmedabad, it was started by Muslim liberals. It is probably the only daily with a large Muslim readership.

It is important to analyse the role played by Gujarat Today given that it caters to the very section of people in Gujarat affected by the state-wide violence following the Godhra incident and undoubtedly plays an important role in giving information and building opinion among Muslims.

Given the terror, insecurity and alienation that Muslims in Gujarat felt over those first few weeks of violence following Godhra, it is commendable that Gujarat Today consciously sought to project the more humane side of inter-community relationships to Muslim readers through its reports. For example, there was a report on how the lives and properties of 175 Muslims of Naroda in Ahmedabad were protected by the local shepherds; how Hindu doctors of Bhavnagar saved properties from burning and made efforts to treat the injured; relief of foodgrain and clothes provided by Hindus to victims in Jhagadia; and a group marriage of Hindu and Muslim youth in Mangrol.

Also reported was news of Prantij, where a woman sarpanch successfully stopped riots occurring in her village. The March 8 edition gives news related to peace committees in Vagra, Palej, Dholka and Bharuch. On March 10, the paper had a report on how Hindu families saved the lives of 15 Muslims in Kavitha village near Borsad. While there are reports of Juhapura, where Hindus were saved by Muslims, there is also a report on how looting of both Hindus and Muslims took place.

The paper attempted to maintain a balance on the role of the police over the first two and a half weeks of the violence. Peace in Padra was attributed to the local police, while the arrest of 28 Muslim youths in Vadodara was criticised.

Gujarat Today maintained a good balance in its editorials and commentaries on the violence. Several editorials reflected concern with the fall-out of the riots and how their effects might be mitigated. The editorials surveyed did not always address the violence. Editorials on only five of the 13 days were about the violence in the State.
 

posted on April 15, 2002
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Source: http://navajivantrust.org/publications/communal-frame.html ]