disaster Archives — NIMBLE FOUNDATION BLOG

4 Essential elements of disaster reporting on TV

The recent earthquake in Nepal has case extensive damage in the Himalayan country. Thousands of lives have been lost. Many children have become orphans the damage to the infrastructure is incalculable. In the circumstances India played its role to help Nepal, a nation in peril.

Sadly our television media reached Kathmandu and other places to cover the disaster. I said sadly, because instead of providing information to evoke sympathy that would motivate people to help; our TV jokers engaged themselves in extracting TRPs. Disaster is not to be treated thus. It is inhuman to ask a person who has lost his near ones ‘How do you feel?’. These TV reporters consider themselves as belonging to a special privileged class. Unfortunately they do not even know the basics of reporting.

The 4 essential elements of disaster reporting on TV according to me are as under:

Language and tone of voice must be serious and somber. However we found that these Johnnies were taking pride in their speech. At times they were energetically emphasizing how their channel was the first to display the disaster.
There should be no unnecessary details, no sensational images to hook the audience. It is an accepted norm of disaster reporting not to show details which can evoke uncontrollable emotions. However, TV reporters were taking pride in bringing all the details for the information of the viewers. Evidently it appeared that reporter was engaged in a task most dear to him. And the task was to hook the audience. It was shameful indeed.
No dramatization whatsoever of tragedies. Unfortunately some of the reporters of private channels devoted themselves to dramatizing the disaster. Their voice modulation and facial expressions depicted as though they were shooting a serial. They thought they were performing their job nicely. They disregarded the suffering of people around and their feelings.
Never ask silly questions to people in grief: That is the attitude expected of everyone; more so of the media reporters. However totally disregarding the same – some channel reporters were even interviewing the people in grief. A mother who lost her son was3. No dramatization disaster is shameful indeed.

It appears television in our country has mushroomed very fast and the medium is often a abused rather than used. Our government should direct that only official Doordarshan or All India Radio should cover and provide all necessary information to news agencies and TV channels.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy

It happened on 3^rd December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Ltd. pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. 30 years have passed; but the tragic remains of the disaster continue to create anguish among thousands of families. Even after 3 decades survivors suffer from various elements and deformities. 3500 lives were lost immediately. About 25000 families continue to suffer. The Bhopal Gas Peedit Sanghatan (Bhopal Gas Victims Organization) continues to fight an unending legal battle.
It is important to remember the day. It is important for such plants to take all the necessary measures that such a huge tragic disaster does not recur. Many such plants though originally built away from the populated places have now come within the thick of population. It is time that the authorities and such manufacturing units contemplate about shifting the locations.

Let us all pray for the families.

Enemies of Happiness – Greed

Yet another enemy of happiness may have entered in the mind of some of us. This is greed. It keeps on growing unabated when not controlled. The end result invariably is a disaster. It can be greed for money, it can be greed for power or fame, respect, sex or even attention. Greed for food is also not uncommon. Greed has a tendency to grow faster when you achieve more. Unfortunately greedy people lose the perspective. If the human wanted more for happiness, it may be considered normal. But greed invariably makes you unhappy. In this case the desire is never controlled.

In fact one can be rich without being greedy. Making more money should not be the objective. Enjoying what you have and of course aspiring for more can be a legitimate goal of successful people in a competitive world. But greed does not allow you to enjoy what you have. It only reinforces your anguish on what you don’t have.

The great English Victorian explorer – Sir Richard Frances Britten once said: ‘conquer thyself till thou have has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjective to another’s appetite as to thine own.’

Shakespeare the great dramatist discussed these characteristics of human mind in great detail when he created the character of his play Macbeth by the same name. Hunger for more power keeps on increasing until Macbeth is pushed to the wall of disaster.

Thanks for reading.

Commonsense.

Indeed, there is so much of information fed to us from all directions everyday that basic common sense is often overlooked. The biggest problem that arises out of our care for minute details and not using our commonsense is that the big picture is lost. We become so much engrossed in the finer points that our perspective itself gets disturbed. There is no doubt that the goals can be achieved only by remaining focused and taking all the actions which as per our plan are required. But keeping commonsense active is necessary. And when we don’t do it, the danger is that working out the plans in greater details than necessary, we may lose our path. Following picture even talks about our destiny depends on our ability to use commonsense all the time.

If we are too anxious to achieve something which is not practical, sometime, it may result in to a disaster. Bhagwad Gita has time and again emphasized the importance of detachment. We must not be emotionally attached to any person or any object as this leads to a constant fear of losing the same. Likewise, when we are extremely anxious of achieving our objective, the anxiety also misleads us.

Common sense according to a British Philosopher ‘is the best sense’. Oscar Wilde went a step further when he said, “now a day’s most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”
Further, it’s very interesting to note the following observation:
The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character’s attributes of New Yorkers, common sense clocked as low as number 79. They say more intelligent than anybody is ‘everybody’. The perception of everybody represents the commonsense that one should never ignore. In fact, nothing astonishes men/women as much as common sense and plain dealing. If an idea is worth having once it’s worth having twice too.

Whatever one may do one should always keep common sense in the forefront and always in view.
Thanks for reading.