MEDIA WATCH: Jonathan Foreman Commentary on Lack of Media Coverage of Hyderabad Bombings

SAJA member Jonathan Foreman writes about the recent Hyderabad bombings in National Review Online. From "Buried by the News: The Deaths of Civilians in Hyderabad is Not a Media Priority":

This weekend saw an extraordinary demonstration of strangely selective “news value” in the British and U.S. media. On Saturday night a pair of synchronized bombs ripped apart two crowded nightspots in Hyderabad, India. The explosions killed 42 people and wounded at least a hundred more. Since the attacks, police have found and diffused 19 more bombs at movie theaters, bus stops, and pedestrian bridges.

As far as I can tell this slaughter was not important enough to make the front page of any major newspaper in Britain or America. Why? Well, one thing is certain: It is not as if bombs go off every day in Hyderabad, which happens to be one of India’s key industrial cities. Moreover, it is not as if India is not on the world’s media map these days.
<snip>
Why then has it been relegated to the inside pages along with the death of former French premier Raymond Barre, and the stalling of war crimes trials in Liberia? One plausible explanation for the minimal coverage is that the Western media’s pace-setters somehow regard murdered Indians as of lesser value than dead people of more favored ethnicity. Not just less important than Americans, Europeans, and Japanese, but less important than Palestinians, Iraqis, Israelis and so forth. If 42 people were killed in the West Bank you can be dead sure it would be front-page news.

But I suspect that the true answer follows a different line: it is simply that the men and women at the front of the media herd have invested their resources in certain places, for reasons that are a mixture of politics and practicality. Everywhere else falls into the category of backwater.

Read the full piece. Read other NRO pieces by Foreman as well as JF-dot-com (that's a photo of him from his days reporting from Iraq). See recent SAJAforum posting about another Foreman piece, "PAKISTAN: A British Woman's Impact on Remotest Pakistan."

Asked by SAJAforum to update us on his whereabouts, Foreman says:

I'm currently based in London and hoping to get some more South Asian assignments after the summer. I'm also involved in the launch of a new political and cultural monthly, title to be decided, that will rival "Prospect" and will, I hope, cover South Asia much more consistently than most British and American publications. I should add that I'd be happy to meet or help out in any way I can any SAJAers visiting London.

[Foreman can be reached at jonathanforeman at aol.com - but due to volume of e-mail, he may not be able to reply to everyone]

What do you think? Post your comments below.

Comments

[Swapna]

While it's true that most newspapers had this piece of news relegated to the inside pages, BBC World had it at the top of its hourly newscast throughout the day. The footage was gut-wrenching, but it felt good to have the option to subscribe to BBC World sitting in New York.

Swapna Venugopal

[Scott]

The lack of coverage of the Hyderabad Bombings here in America was unforgivable. But then again I don't like much of what the press does and doesn't do in America. The media in America is controlled by the Left. They probably downplayed the news because they thought that news about terrorist attacks and the destruction they caused would help Bush. Also I don't think they do value life as much when we are talking about people like South Asians.

It proves one of the beliefs I have about the American Left. For all their talk of diversity they are indeed the most racist ones of all. Hypocrisy and transference (calling others what they really are themselves) are key characteristics of the Left.

Jaya, I know you don't like hearing people called evil, but I really believe that liberals are not merely wrong, but indeed they are evil.

[Panditjugalkishoreshastri]

Even though divided by a shared language, brits and yanks, are the two ends of the same stick. The stick beats down on different targets with a different style of swagger. Some by ignoring, others by adulating and yet others by bullying. And most media is just a shortsighted handmaiden of the two administrations. Be it BBC, New York, or CNN, Europe, the media market is divided between new prospects and existing subscribers. Customized information inspired by inadequate illusion woos new customers for future generations. The middle class, shop keeping, mercantile mentality of this media is extremely well camouflaged by the slogans raised in the name of free press. When media informally executes the policies of the government, it ceases to be the fourth estate. It should merge with one of the three branches of the government, left or right.

Nothing can exceed my surprise than a comatose U.S. media giving short shrift to mayhem Pakistani terrorism caused in India at a time when a global outcry against terrorism would have made the subject immenseley readable.

But no siree. The pious platitudes of media moghuls and pundits
were meant only for the Pentagon and the Whitehall.

Bush's alliance with the General-President Musharraf of Pakistan is easily understandable as political expediency as they pursued the ogre laden in the caves of tora bora. But after the terrorist hatchling was out of the incubators and madrassas of Lahore, its first dry run, its testing ground was India. Why didn't terrorism in India figure much in the analaysis of talking heads and penmanship of journalists. Politics makes strange bedfellows.

It is time to invoke moral police to monitor the bedroom.

[Scott]

Panditjugalkishoreshastri (I sure would have difficulty pronouncing that name) what would a more sensible policy be towards Pakistan given that it seems that Musharraf is a moderating influence in the country and without him things would be very worse.

With Musharraf we at least have some influence. If he was gone and a more radical regime takes his place that would not only be dangerous for America but for India too. And of course Pakistan's nukes kind of freak us out.

So, seriously, please explain what a better policy would be. Often in foreign policy it isn't a choice between good and evil but between evil and worse evil.

[Panditjugalkishoreshastri]

haha

SCOTT: I have trouble keeping scott and scoot apart in my head. And Scooter Libby messes up this mess even more. But then again, Scotts are not Brits. Brits are brighter. They quickly learned to bow to maharajas and princes so they could take boxes of muslin, calico and cottons back from India to london. But when Brits went to Scotland where Scotts lived they came back empty handed and announced: The only good prospect Scotland has is the road leading from Scotland to England. I am sorry you have difficulty pronouncing panditjugalkishoreshastri. It has more than two syllables. It takes a James Bond to get out of Scotland. I bet you don't see the connection between Bond and Scotland. Scotland is bonded forever.

[Jaya Kamlani]

Scott,

Let me explain to you what "Panditjugalkishoreshastri" name represents. Among the Hindus, a priest is addressed as 'pandit'. Sometimes he is also referred to as ‘shastri’ because these priests are well-read on Indian epics and shastras (Vedic religious scriptures). The temple I sometimes attended when I lived in Silicon Valley, California had a priest whom we called 'shastriji' ("ji" suffix added for veneration). In other words the person you are communicating with is an Indian priest whose name is Jugal Kishore.

Thought I should tell you a little something of our Hindu religion and culture. But this Pandit seems to be acting out like a mascot, a comedian. So I don’t know if he is a real pandit/pundit, or just someone assuming that name and bragging about his research information and giving you a spin on words. I did internet research on the name and found there is someone by the name of Pandit Jugal Kishore who is into Vedas and religion.

So now that you know something about his name, shall we say the last laugh is on him?

Jaya Kamlani

[Scott]

That you very much Jaya for the information.

My comment refers back to a comment I had about Bobby Jindal. People were criticizing him for changing his name from Piyush to Bobby. I tried to explain that lots of immigrants do this because Americans often have trouble pronouncing foreign names. Yes, this is a failing on our part but I said that Bobby Jindal was quite nice in changing his name so we didn't have to struggle with it. Again lots of immigrants adopt American nicknames.

And not only immigrants do it. At the age of twenty-four, Bobby Jindal was appointed Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals by Governor Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr. See, the Governor's name was really Murphy but he liked having people call him Mike.

[Panditjugalkishoreshastri]

TO WHOMSOEVER THIS MAY CONCERN

haha

i recommend laughter to anyone on an empty stomach. particularly, the last laugh. Not recommending it is like telling a starving man to eat less.

Please feel free to laugh if you are undernourished, underfed and over-wifed. But Jaya should have no such issues because she has no woman's issues according to her SAALT post. She is an IT consultant from times immemorial and therefore predates the advent of IT. She predates even Transistor that won its inventor shockley and his two partners the nobel prize. She is extremely creative be it with switches, transistors, modems or definition of a Shastri, simply a post-graduate in Hindi. There is no religion in Shastri.

I am glad she almost went brathless explaining the meaning of Shastri. That's why I maintain that writers of religion are the most enduring writers of all times. thousands of years after their books were written they still find followers in Jaya who strives to rewrite on their behalf.

Long live the KING. Sing some Elvis Presley.

[Srinivasa Raghavan]

I for one appreciated the Pandit's posts on this particular thread. These ones made enjoyable reading, though I'm not sure if our Pandit said that he was a post-graduate in Hindi, or that this is the only relevance of Shastri in his opinion in today's world.

[Jaya Kamlani]

Srinivasa,

Before you go missing the man too much, let me tell you that my mother passed away last week, and I received the call while I was ready to post a comment, and so therefore I grieved on SAJA Forum. The pandit has only been communicating on this forum for the past two weeks. He read about my mother's passing away and a few commentators expressing their condolence, then a day or two later he mocks and laughs at me. It has now barely been ten days since my mother's passing away in Bombay, and I was to go and see her shortly. So you can imagine how I have been hurting.

So tell me what kind of a man reads about a woman who has just lost her mother, and then instead of letting her grieve, both you and the pandit attack her (ofcourse you did not know of my mother's passing away, but the pandit did). If you had known of my mother's death would you have challenged and said all those things to me as you did, or would you have mocked me like the pandit did. You see, I believe in people being kind and caring. It's okay if we have disagreements, because we are not supposed to think like robots. But sarcasm and laughing at someone is not okay in my books. The pandit has no etiquette. In fact, he is not even a good human being from what I observed of him in these last 10 days.

Srinivasa, although we did not get off to a good start, I feel there are plenty of good friends you can make on this forum if you can just keep an open mind, think positive and hang in there.

Jaya Kamlani

[Jaya Kamlani]

ARUN VENUGOPAL or Sree,

I think the stream of conversation is not pertinent to the article on this posting. As you said, we should stick to the subject. So could you please DELETE all comments (including mine) from Pandit's comment of "haha" of August 30, 2007 @6:38 pm. addressed to Scott to the end of the comments stream - last one made by the pandit on Sept. 9, '07 @ 3:17 pm.

Sorry for all the trouble this has caused you and Sree.

Jaya Kamlani

[Steve]

We must never forget, never forget, never forget!

[Jaya Kamlani]

Steve,

Your statement is incomplete. Never forget what?

Jaya Kamlani

[Steve]

Sorry, I thought it was obvious.

Never forget the victims of terrorism whether it's in New York or Hyderabad. It is the same enemy we are fighting. Never forget that we are at war. Never forget the nature of our enemy.

[Steve]

Bill did have a democratic majority for his first 2 years.

[Jaya Kamlani]

Srinivasa,

You are off the subject again. This posting is about the Hyderabad bombings? Do you have a word of CONDOLENCE for the victims families of those bombings? If not, then save your mud-slinging comments for another posting: presidential race/candidates.

It is sad that many innocent Indians, especially the youth, died in such a grave tragedy in Hyderabad. And you and panditji have turned this forum and tragedy into a mockery. I will let the readers be the judge of you two.

Jaya Kamlani

[jaya Kamlani]

Pandit Jugal Kishore,

You too are off the subject. Instead of writing all the nonsense you do, you should be feeling sorry for your fellow-Indians who died in the Hyderabad bombings and for the families who lost their loved ones. This is the place for you to pay your respect, your CONDOLENCE to the victims families, not pick on SAJA members.

In your prior comments you have stated you are from Delhi. Well then, research shows that Pandit Jugal Kishore from Delhi is the one involved in the Babri Masjid debacle that has been going on for years. Perhaps it is best that people know who you are and where to locate you for your outspoken extremist views. I hope some journalist finds you in Delhi and questions you unto eternity on your involvement with the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Research also shows a Pandit Jugal Kishore of Delhi is a frequent speaker at Babri Masjid meetings. You are now exposed.

Panditji, you are a disgustingly sick man and in dire need of help. You definitely need to take a dip in the Ganges River... every hour on the hour. Even then your sins will not be washed away. There are pervert Christian evangelists, and there are pervert Hindu evangelists. And you sure are one of the latter.

Jaya Kamlani

[Srinivasa Raghavan]

First, I didn't sling mud. I merely questioned whether the Pandit's characterization of you as the moderate left was correct. I didn't call you any names. I responded to PJKS's post. Second, You are guilty of posting off topic in a number of fora, so I don't see how you took it upon yourself to become the subject matter enforcement authority. I only replied off topic because PJKS changed the subject. Your 9/11 post in the election category is no less off topic than this.

[Srinivasa Raghavan]

Steve,

I wouldn't call Bill a left-wing option. He was the most conservative of the democratic candidates when he was first elected. I myself had hoped Paul Tsongas wouldn't have dropped out. He seemed like a really decent fellow, but then there were concerns with his health, which forced him to withdraw.

[Jaya Kamlani]

Srinivasa,

Only a few days ago, Arun had asked us to stick to the subject. Per his request, since he is the editor, we should try to stay on the subject. To quote you: "I only replied off topic because PJKS changed the subject."…. So Srinivasa, if the pandit changes the subject, do you have to fall for the bait? He talks utter nonsense most of the time, in any case.

I mentioned about a moment of silence for 9/11 on the presidential campaign posting, because my comments on the official 9/11 posting did not go through. Neither did anyone else's either. In fact, I had sent an email to Sree and Arun saying that the posting was not accepting comments. So yesterday being 9/11, I felt I had to mention the event somewhere because I had witnessed the event, and had very personal experiences on that day.

Srinivasa, please don't discuss politics or anything else on this posting. Since this posting is about the Hyderabad bombings, let us show respect to those who lost their loved ones in the Hyderabad bombing. Let us observe a moment of silence for those victims as well. Their families must be hurting. I thank Steve for reminding us about it when he said we should “not forget” and I wondered what he was referring to when he said that, as we had all gone off-tangent during our heated exchange. Imagine, he, an American, is reminding us that we should be grieving for our fellow Indians, victims of the Hyderabad bombings.

STEVE: Please do not respond to Srinivasa's question on politics here. He can select the Presidential Race category – Obama/Clinton posting if he wants to discuss presidential candidates. We don't have a posting for Republican candidates, so I just post all info on Republican candidates there as well.

ARUN or SREE: If you want, you may delete all our comments on this posting, so we can start a fresh page to leave our condolences for the families of the victims. That would be the most respectable thing to do, because all our bickering on this page shows how petty-minded we are. Please check with the other commentators as well. This is just my thought.

Jaya Kamlani

[panditjugalkishoreshastri]

Raghavan:

Southern democrats are relatively conservative next to the broad democratic canvas. Bill, the king of the Hill, moved the whole democratic philosophy towards center. He pioneered the centrist
thrust so well that the democratic think tanks couldn't comprehend the contours of his new blue print for the democratic future. It took them a while to generate a broad-based "conversation" platform from Bill's seminal thinking. Since Republican holy hossanas and hallelujahs were not working they had to invent the cigar and monica lewinsky against one of the brightest humans to ever inhabit the white house.
According to Pew Institute Carter Kennedy and Clinton topped the presidential IQ heap between 170 and 180. Reagan was 120. Senior Bush, 110 and Junior Bush 95. Three of the latter day republicans, based on their average IQ, could barely nudge past bipolar lunatics.

God save the country from Republicans.

If HIllary's Universdal Health Bill which was years in making had a democratic congress behind it, when needed, all bipolar lunatics would be free of fear.

Meantime, sing some bhajans of subhalaxmi...the queen of music.

PS: someone tell me how to spell hallelujah