Bad Reporting

This is probably the nth piece I am writing about reporting in our channels.

There was a fire today close to our home on Old Airport Road in Carlton Towers (the complex that houses TGIF, IndiJoes etc). So we got an advisory from Cisco saying that we should avoid using Old Airport Road. But for folks like us who live on Old Airport Road, this is just not possible. Subhash was planning to come early  (was supposed to be a surprise) but he saw the advisory mail I forwarded and asked me to check the news channel.

Now I was seeing people being brought out, unconscious. And the voice over was saying that everyone has been evacuated. And even after 15 minutes of listening to this "every one has been evacuated" I was seeing visuals of people being brought out, people being helped to walk out, people walking out and jubiliant and so on. After 20 minutes or so I realized it was just repeated coverage (that all news channels universally so well do). What a shame! At least if you are offering fresh news and are not recycling stale news, I'd expect you to change visuals.

The highlight was this news person interviewing the COO of Manipal Hospital (to where everyone injured and suspected dead were taken). The guy on one hand kept saying we cannot disclose any numbers till we make sure, give us half an hour and the news reporter kept saying "Ok, so how many people are dead". I am like, hello, can't you understand what he is saying?

Ohh god!