Bombs and media blast

Last week was a week of panic and terror for the whole country. There seemed to be bombs everywhere. Suddenly people felt they were not safe anywhere. Bombs exploded in buses, bus-shelters, near shopping malls, in parks and, sadly, even in hospitals. So which was the safe place? No place was safe, no one was safe. That was the message picked up by the people after the bomb blasts occurred in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
Media were, as usual, agog with wide coverage of the twin blasts. News channels had no other news, except the terror news in two states, for several days. Further, they were also quick to make equations and draw conclusions on the pattern of terror – that it happened only in BJP-ruled states. So a high alert was sounded by the Media, to start with. Accordingly, other BJP-ruled states went dizzy beefing up security measures.
Such equations seemed far too pre-matured. In fact, the two blasts that happened may not have had any immediate connection with each other. When all attention is concentrated somewhere else, terrorists have their job easy. That is how the strategy may have worked.
But there was another issue; that was media’s carelessness exposed abundantly those days. On the first day most channels were in a way responsible in creating panic among people by airing all the while only the blasts in Bangalore. They had no other news. Though the blasts were of low intensity, the channels made them look really serious and enormous. Because they aired only that news, the whole city was in panic. Everything came to a standstill, at least for sometime, when terror struck Bangalore.
The next day, however, when there were blasts in Ahmedabad, Bangalore was totally forgotten, left to fend for itself. Channels spared not even a few minutes doing a follow up. That was not their concern, at least on that day, as they had a bigger pie to savour. It is unfortunate; but it is a fact that media always look for stories to ‘appease’ their audience and keep themselves afloat in the market of cutthroat competition. In the bargain, of course, audience is left to wonder at the media dynamics that are at work.
A couple of days later, however, channels came up showing the resilience of the people of both cities. They had high praise for these people. They said that in general people in all metros were highly resilient. What else can those people do? Can they lock themselves inside their houses for days? Life in a metro is tough for common people. Unless they work hard everyday they have to worry about their next meal. Media may call it resilience; but people would rather term it their fate; their daily struggle.