Monday, December 10, 2007

Fwd: Looks like the reader's editor acknowledges Hindu's biased coverage

there must have been a deluge of protests to the reader's editor. he
grudgingly posts three of them. chindu only accepts letters with name
and full address. why then are these letters not attributed to anyone?


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ramesh
Here is some interesting stuff

http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/10/stories/2007121056261100.htm

At the bottom, in the unattributed piece, Looks like the Reader's
ediotr is acknowleding that Hindu was biased in its reportage. .. Here
is the excerpt:

There was balance in the coverage to the extent that protesting voices
against what was "happening" in Nandigram got adequate representation.
But what was really happening? The reader was left to guess. The Home
Secretary said it was a "war zone"; Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya described what had happened in Nandigram as legal and
justified and added, "we have paid back in their own coin." These
widely reported (but not in The Hindu) remarks indicated something
serious had happened and it needed to be justified. Obviously it was
not Maoists and Trinamool alone, who were responsible for the
situation and the published reports did not make things clear.

The reporting in The Hindu was selective. Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh's comment on the situation (while on his way to Kuala Lumpur)
did not find a place and this had to be inferred from the Chief
Minister's reaction to it. Similarly, the Chief Minister's "paid back"
remark found mention only when there were reactions to it.

The unprecedented public protest in Kolkata was well covered, but one
was left wondering what was the "situation" in Nandigram against which
the intellectuals and artists were protesting. As a newsman, my first
priority would have been spot coverage. That media persons were denied
access to the "war zone" was unknown to The Hindu readers. The first
Nandigram-datelined report, from Antara Das, appeared much after
things had quietened down in the area. Nandigram did not get the
detailed analysis that an explosion in tiny faraway Maldives got at
the same time.

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