Having some personal interest ties to India, I have been watching Indian media for a while, and have wanted to blog on some of their online work. The initiatives and efforts of the Indian press were indeed showcased this week as they covered the Mumbai train attacks.
Some Indian press is doing a remarkably good job of incorporating citizen reports to this event, particularly the IBN-CNN site and BBC South Asia.
Times of India and the Press Trust of India are also providing good coverage.
At this hour, the death toll is at 198 with 714 injured, according to IBN-CNN. The prime suspected organizations are the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and Pakistani-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The IBN-CNN site is of particular note; yesterday they had citizens post eyewitness pictures and today saw the beginning of a reader-generated missing persons page.
They also have a page featuring comments from both regular citizens and higher-profile Mumbai-based celebs. As is sometimes the case here, the reader comments on this particlular article were more fascinating than than the article, particlularly one reader taking the celeb establishment to task for what he viewed as a stock soundbite response while denying their own industry's connections to organized crime.
Last week IBN had a great series of reader submitted photos and videos on the monsoon flooding in Mumbai, well presented and collated by online staffers on this page.
An interesting discussion is developing at Times of India with editors asking for public feedback on the TOI.com decision not to run graphic images. Entitled "Gory Pix: our call, your vote", the paper asks:
As news of one of the worst terror attacks ever started to come in, photographs too poured in. Many of which explicitly showed the carnage and human loss caused by the seven blasts. Unlike television channels beaming images of blood and gore, we at www.timesofindia.com took a call not to display such pictures on the website. We felt it would only add to the deep despair of the moment. We showed instead the damage caused and, more importantly, the resilience and humanity of Mumbaikars. Do you think we have done the right thing? Or would you rather have us put up all photographs from the site of tragedy without filter?The discussion seems to balance in support of TOI's restraint, but there are some opinions claiming the event needs to not be sanitized.
TOI offers both reader comments and readers rating, as do CNN-IBN and other papers, but the extent of participation at TOI has always seemed muted compared to the CNN-IBN intitatives, at least since I've been watching Indian media over the past six or eight months. CNN - IBN seem to have built the critical mass needed to mobilize an effective response from readers .
Interestingly one of the boldest experiments in citizen journalism, India's Merinews.com,
is curiously disconected from this event. What seems to have had good promise initally on their launcha few months ago now feels like a central clearing board for various causes. Which is certainly a valid and substantive inititaitve, and the causes are worthy, but they're not obtaining the civic response from an event like this that I would have hoped for. I think they have a great idea and potential however, and it's an effort well worth supporting and and watching as it develops.
This tragedy is having a little resonance on the personal home front as well, as I'm due to be in Mumbai at the end of August. My kids are a little worried, but I'm proceeding as planned. If anything the heightened state of security may make the situation overall a little safer.
