A new take on attacks on NE people : Studying the media coverage
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 23 , 2014 -

Some food for thought. In the April 19 edition of this paper, our regular columnist, Bula Devi, a Delhi based journalist, in her column 'Despatch From Delhi,' gave a different take on media coverage when it comes to attacks on North East people living, working or studying in Delhi and NCR.

We are not back tracking from our stand that there is definitely a pattern or a design behind the series of attacks, taunts, molestations, rapes and wolf whistles which the people from the North East have to cope with once they cross the chicken neck, a symbolic description of the sharp mental and emotional divide between the people of North East India and the rest of the country.

However, Bula Devi in her last article did give a fresh insight on how the mainstream media or media houses based in the metros have been reporting these cases, which have all the potential to do more harm than good. Our columnist did give examples, examples worth studying and digesting.

Why is there the need for the media and TV channels based in Delhi and elsewhere to come out with screaming headlines whenever anyone from the North East region is at the receiving end ?

Is it a demonstration of emphatising with the plight of the North East people or is it just plain sensationalism ?

Why do the native States of others who too have suffered or been assaulted and molested in Delhi and elsewhere hardly find a mention in the reports ?

Powerful questions and worth pondering over.

In making it sure that the native States of the North East people make it to the print, are the media houses showing 'they care' or is it a sign of the media giving a racist tone in their reporting ?

We cannot speak for the others but The Sangai Express too is not free from overlooking this crucial fact.

But there is a difference in the sense that we are reporting on matters that affect the people of the North East and we are based in the North East.

However this should not mean that some thoughts should not be given on the take given by our columnist from Delhi.

Another very important point that the writer behind Despatch From Delhi, made was the stoic silence maintained by the mainstream media or media based in the metros on the stupendous showing by Mizoram, when it won the Santosh Trophy, an inter-State football tournament.

After 2002 when Manipur won it, Mizoram became the second State from the region to lift this coveted trophy.

However in almost all the major newspapers published in the metros, the good showing was reduced to a footnote.

Negative news or news on violence and communal stand offs and of course mundane things such as what a matinee idol wore on an occasion are staple diets, while the positives are always relegated to the inside pages.

It was some years back that The Hindu reported that while there were hundreds of media persons at a fashion do in Delhi, there was only one reporter covering the story of farmers' suicide in western India, especially in Andhra Pradesh and Maharastra.

Says something pathetic about the manner in which media houses go about with their business of disseminating information to the public.

Coming back to the assaults and attacks on the North East people in Delhi and NCR, we have not back tracked from our earlier stand that there is definitely a pattern or a design behind these series of attacks.

But equally important too is to study how the media can help improve the situation while covering these news.

By this we are not saying that native States of the North East people should not be divulged, but this should be done with a certain degree of sensitivity.