Indian media: in love with the military, blind to the truth of Pakistan conflict?

The Indian army’s claims that up to 300 terrorists had been killed in Pakistan were breathlessly reported by local media – then refuted by the foreign press

The media has long been reluctant to criticise the armed forces, even after reports of serious human rights violations such as rape and murder

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Access to conflict zones is controlled by the armed forces, meaning journalists are dependent on the army and need to maintain their goodwill. Photo: AP

Published: 7:06pm, 5 Mar 2019Updated: 9:50am, 6 Mar 2019

On February 27, a day after the Indian Air Force carried out air strikes targeting the town of Balakot in Pakistan, the influential Indian television journalist Faye D’Souza sent a telling tweet.

“We are slowing down the news updates at @MirrorNow to carry only what is confirmed,” she wrote. “Our viewers may find us slower than the others today.”

It was an admission that her network had failed to do the basics in verifying its information in reporting the developing story about India’s military face-off with Pakistan. That is a startling acknowledgement given that stand-offs such as these are inevitably marked by claim and counterclaim – a fact underlined at the weekend with the US State Department’s announcement that it would look into India’s claims that Pakistan had used American built F-16 jets against it, allegations Islamabad vigorously denies.

On the same day of India’s strikes on Balakot, NDTV anchor Nidhi Razdan tweeted: “Can we all just calm down. An escalation does not help either country. To begin with, stop watching TV and seeing Twitter on both sides. We will all be saner.”

Legacy media in India made a fool of themselves reporting this major story. D’Souza and Razdan were the only journalists brave enough to acknowledge this; theirs was remarkable behaviour in the context of the Indian press fraternity, which is largely impervious to introspection and apology.

In the hours after the February 26 air strike, established print publications and television channels reported that 200 to 300 terrorists had been killed in the attack, and that the largest training camp of the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohamed (JeM) had been hit. The news outlets attributed these statements to “sources”, even though the government had not officially signed off on these claims.