Opinion Worst-case Scenes

And then there’s Japan. That country’s traumatic series of crises could be responded to in different ways. A couple of desi news channels decided to maximise alarm,with graphics showing a giant CGI wave,scary music and big shaking text saying “bhukamp”. The English channels weren’t that different; IBN was particularly alarmist,using the Fukushima nuclear plant explosions to pile on to nuclear energy quite disturbingly and cynically,for example in a segment “explaining the health impacts of radiation poisoning”,with bass-heavy background music and words that weren’t better researched than the first paragraph of the appropriate Wikipedia article. The report quoted SMSes circulating in India warning of post-tsunami radiation poisoning from rainfall,and then cut to someone from the Met department explaining this was as likely,in meteorological terms,as a snowstorm in hell. Except it came at the end of a segment explaining,to Indians who must immediately have begun to feel nauseous,radiation poisoning symptoms! Oh,and the moment he stopped speaking,the scary music started up again. No number of anodyne quotes from WHO representatives can make up for that sort of slanted editing.

Contrast that blatant irresponsibility with the reporting from Japan,some of it on CNN-IBN’s foreign affiliate,and carried on IBN,too. Sanjay Gupta has a sensible bedside manner,and hammered the point in,over and over again,that the radius of any severe radiation leakage would keep pretty much everyone watching CNN safe even in a worst-case scenario. He had joined Anderson Cooper in Japan,who had gone to cover the tsunami — and actually had to cancel half of his two-hour show because he was too close to the nuclear plant. Tough job,but it wasn’t made much of. Indeed,his shows were well-balanced,calming,and respectful of Japan’s grief; they interviewed nuclear engineers who’d worked in plants explaining how you sometimes had to risk your life; survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami,on coping mechanisms; energy experts stressing the safeguards built in to more modern nuclear plants; and an American senator from Louisiana complaining about people that “use any ongoing crisis to immediately try to advance their pre-existing political agenda rather than first dealing with the crisis,and secondly actually gathering the facts”. It felt like watching reporting,and discussion,that took itself seriously. That worried about the impact it would have,rather than about having an impact. On reporting moments of crisis,it was clear that there’s a lot for Indian news TV to learn.