06/08/2013

 

It is the season of selling ‘poisonous’ stories now

Soroor Ahmed

Repeated reports of children falling sick or fainting after taking mid-day meal or drinking water in schools have raised concern among people in Bihar. As these reports have followed July 16 tragedy, which took lives of 23 school-children in Dharmasati-Gandaman village of Saran district, it is bound to create suspicion.

While the state government is busy propagating conspiracy theory the opposition parties are of the view that the recent incidents have exposed the failure of the state government. After all how can the water in the hand-pumps be poisoned by any person as there is little scope for it? This is the question they are asking. And if it is so why is the government not arresting the culprits and probing the whole issue?

However, some experts are of the view that such incidents are not unusual in many parts of the state, especially when the water level has gone down.

But there is a third angle to the whole story, which needs to be paid attention to. And that has much to do with journalism.
People’s memory is short but not so short to forget everything which took place a few years back.

The first incident took place within days of Lalu Yadav succeeding Nitish Kumar as the railway minister in May 2004. A man, said to be a railway contractor, was killed in the running Danapur-Howrah Express while it was approaching Patna. Naturally the news got a big media coverage not just because Lalu took over as the railway minister but because his spouse Rabri Devi was ruling Bihar. As crime on train is a state subject the Rabri government was answerable for it. Old rivalry was said to be the cause of the murder.

From the next day onward front page of almost all the newspapers of Bihar were filled with big stories of crime on the running trains in the state––mostly dacoities. Even relatively small incidents of chain snatching got prominent coverage. This phenomenon continued for a few weeks. Questions were raised over the capability of Lalu Yadav to handle the railway portfolio. After a couple of weeks it was all normal.

It may be that the crimes in running trains had increased in the first couple of weeks after Lalu Yadav took over. But it can not also be denied that news-items are now a commodity and media often highlights even related smaller incidents after a big ones as readers or viewers get attracted towards them.

So in the past children falling sick after mid-day meal or drinking water never used to get such a coverage. Only a few months back one such incident took place in Jehanabad where several children were hospitalized but it hardly got a big coverage. In a couple of cases one or two children even lost their lives but no due attention was paid by the media.

Secondly, since the state government’s grip on the media has now got weakened after the snapping of ties with the BJP journalists are now taking more freedom in highlighting stories, which otherwise they did not use to.

There is another example of mid-1990s. Delhi-Howrah Kalka Mail was running on Mughalsarai-Patna route instead of Mughalsarai-Gaya route because of some mishap on the Grand Chord section. A train dacoity took place between Dildarnagar and Zamania in Uttar Pradesh and a Delhi Police sub-inspector, originally from Bihar, was killed as he tried to overpower the criminals. Though the crime took place well inside Uttar Pradesh, the newspapers of Bihar made the news a big banner headline as the body of the police officer was later brought to Patna.

Though apparently Bihar had nothing to do with the incident yet the newspapers––there was hardly any private TV channels then––continued to highlight the incident of rail dacoities in trains in Bihar for next couple of weeks. After a few days such stories were pushed to the inside pages as they gradually lost their market value.

Yet another incident took place a few years back during the Nitish regime. Ten Nuts were lynched by a mob in Rajapakad block in Vaishali district. Since it was really a big incident a section of media followed stories of lynching of even one or two persons for weeks.

It is not that rail dacoity, lynching or even for that matter kidnapping has suddenly disappeared. In the eyes of the media they are not worth marketing now. At present it is ‘poisonous’ stories, which are selling like hot cakes. And for that the media is giving different twists and meanings to them.

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