ISLAMABAD: Ravish Kumar, a distinguished Indian broadcaster belonging to NDTV has asserted that reporting [on the current crisis] by Indian TV channels is quite bad. “They are not reporting on the conflict as much as they are using the conflict as an excuse to build up the ruling party's electoral prospects in the upcoming general elections. The intention of this warmongering is to polarise people and consolidate votes.”
Talking to German Deutsche Welle (DW), he reminded that India has problem of unemployment, for example, and many other issues that have recently emerged. They haven't been addressed over the past five years. All these issues have been bypassed. The media is using "experts" to legitimise their [the ruling party's] propaganda.
“I have appealed to people that for the next one and a half months, they should not watch television at all to avoid listening to this warmongering.” He said that Indian journalists are being pressured to conform to the official narrative on Pakistan. Those who don't comply have faced public ridicule on social media. He said that we are under pressure because if the general mood is tuned toward warmongering, we have to decide between catering to this mood and reporting factual information.
This has become a big challenge. For example, the chief of the Indian air force has not said exactly how many people were killed in the airstrike that India carried out. Kumar said that 'There is a lot of pressure on the viewers as well, as they are unable to ascertain the facts.' The officials said they didn't know, and it would be premature to say anything now. But there are different figures circulating in the media.
Some say 400 were killed, some say 650 were killed--even senior journalists were not immune from saying them. All kinds of wrong information are being circulated under the pretext of senior officials speaking "off the record." Even the Indian air force has said there is a lot of misinformation in the media. So it's difficult to report on facts in such a scenario. He revealed that if you see other news channels, they used old videos to simulate the conflict.
News channels have become "graphic war rooms." Journalists who stick to factual reporting are very few and because their peers are reporting in another way, they think: "Why am I the only one talking about facts?" Ravish Kumar said that there is a lot of pressure on the viewers as well, as they are unable to ascertain the facts. Instead of presenting information, television channels are continuously showing discussions between experts. These talks are mostly based on perception and imaginary scenarios, like what will happen if someone does this or that.
So basically, the media has crossed all boundaries and is calling for war. In fact, some reporters are even using phrases like, "Is the election important or is action [against Pakistan] more important?" To a query about the impact of release of Indian pilot as peace gesture by Pakistan on media reporting in India, he said that people in India have appreciated Pakistan's gesture, but then even that has been twisted in the media with headlines like "Pakistan surrenders" or "Pakistan succumbs."
I have said in all my three shows that while we are seeing the heroism of the Indian air force, we're also witnessing the decline of the Indian media. I said right from the beginning that you can't trust these news anchors. He disclosed that the day India undertook the air strike against Pakistan, many newspapers distributed free copies to people. Many unverified claims were magnified and the whole affair has been converted to serve a political agenda. Talking about the impact of whole episode on polls in India, the eminent broadcaster said that we don't know if this reporting will make a difference in the upcoming elections. If someone is unemployed, he or she needs to think whether he wants to vote based on job prospects or based on what the media says about the India-Pakistan tensions.
“The BJP government and its members are very excited, with many believing that the Indian offensive would help the party win seats in the elections. In places like Allahabad, for example, posters have appeared showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with pictures of Mirage 2000 jets and boasting about his victory against Pakistan. So the imagery of the election campaign has now completely changed,” he added. The interview was conducted by Manasi Gopalakrishna of the DW.
