During Operation Sindoor, when the Indian government launched strategic strikes on terrorist locations in Pak-occupied Kashmir and deep inside Pakistan in response to the deadly attacks on tourists in Pahalgam, I was in my hometown, Guwahati. Walking through the markets the next morning, I realized the late-night attacks had become the talk of the town – people were huddled around television sets, watching legacy news channels, or were glued to their phones, trying to piece together what had happened from videos that went viral on social media platforms or independent news media outlets.
“Jung shuru ho gaya (The war has begun),” declared a man. “No,” countered another one, trying to explain that this wasn’t a full-scale war but a surgical strike. Then began a debate between the two, each quoting videos or news articles they had seen or read. They both claimed their source was more authentic. I didn’t mention I had a news media background and walked on.
A few meters away, my journalistic credentials caught up with me as I walked past the shop of an old friend. “He will explain what’s going on,” my friend told a group of people – pointing at me. I tried explaining that I was just as clueless, and that I was depending on what I felt were a few trusted legacy news media organizations and independent outlets.
Some of them requested me to find out “inside details” from media colleagues. I said this was a matter of national interest and very sensitive, even the media would have to depend on official briefings for updates. “Then how do they have information and visuals from the spot?” my friend asked, showing me a few clips uploaded on news channels, both mainstream and independent.
By then, social media had been flooded by “visuals of the war” posted by users, all of them quoting some news source or the other. That was only the trailer of what unfolded over the next few days – a blitzkrieg of war-mongering misinformation and shrieking headlines – as well as a disinformation campaign – both on social media and some well-known news media houses.
A parallel media campaign was on air in Pakistan too – claiming an upper hand in the conflict. There were conflicting reports of both sides downing fighter jets, capturing pilots, striking military installations and even a nuclear site in Pakistan. Some new channels claimed the Indian Navy had attacked Karachi, while others said Islamabad had been captured. Political parties also had their tales to tell, according to their affiliations.
So what was the main casualty in the rush to grab headlines and eyeballs amid a fog of war? Truth and trust. Individuals going overtly jingoistic and posting inflammatory stuff on social media isn’t surprising.
However, news media forgetting ethics and journalistic norms is not just a matter of concern – it is alarming. When news anchors scream and howl and go blood-thirsty on live television – it is not just dangerous, it’s catastrophic, if I may use that word.
“Whom do we trust?” asked the same friend, a couple of days after many such claims and videos had been debunked as old clips from different strife-torn regions. Clips from Gaza and Iran that had been recycled to fit in the Indo-Pak war narrative. “Even leading media channels are making such claims…how do we confirm the truth?” he asked. I had difficulty answering.
“The misinformation on mainstream media platforms about the conflict between India and Pakistan is the latest blow to what was once a vibrant journalism scene in India,” the New York Times says in a report. “When previously trusted sources become disinformation outlets, it’s a really large problem,” the NYT article quotes Sumitra Badrinathan, an assistant professor of political science at American University who studies misinformation in South Asia, as saying.
A prominent news anchor, while apologizing for a false report, said that sometimes 24-hour news channels can fall into the “trap of disinformation campaigns unleashed under the guise of national interest.”
One whiff of fresh air and relief was the fact-checkers who were working overtime. “The information ecosystem is broken,” Pratik Sinha, founder of Alt News, a fact-checking platform, has been quoted as saying. The print media also exercised restraint, not going overtly ballistic and trusting only official information. “Good that newspapers are still alive,” I spotted young readers posting on social media.
Censorship of one section of media and letting another section a free-run, was also a matter of concern. “When news organizations indulge in warmongering, they are not only participating in sensationalism, they are also putting the peace of the general people in jeopardy,” an article in legalmaestros.com aptly says.
Now that the tension has subsided, will the “once-trusted” news media go back to the good old ways of journalism? Or is hyper-sensationalism the new news media normal? Whatever the case, news media needs to do some serious self-introspection.
