Communication gap ?

Very often ( always) whenever an incident happen in Delhi ( I am talking about the unfortunate incidents), the next day all the north easterners would grab the newspaper ( the Times of India to be specific). Many were also scanning and surfing the net for other papers and Television channels as well, or so it seems. I say this because the social networking sites are flooded with the “reports” the following day.And all this information sharing and wide circulation are accompanied with grievances saying “the report is wrong”  ...” quotes are misquoted ”  ... "the report is discriminatory"..."they (mainland reporter) don’t know / understand" .. Not only incidents we always have meeting-discussion (seminars) where mainland speakers are making all the politically wrong statements .!!  

  

Now, why and how did this always happen? I admit I don’t know how and why the “national” reporters of the National Newspapers or Televisions always report “wrongly”. But this is something that is quite interesting, rather I found it amusing, as none of the newspaper reporters seems to write anything “correctly”.

 Recalling moments:

Most incidents happened in the evening / night, after 8 pm. In recent years, most information comes through the social networking sites. Face-book and email in earlier years, most recently it is whatsapp and smses.  

Regarding how and where the “national” media get information , that I do not know. 

WhatsApp would keep beeping in the night, it normally begins after 10 pm and I don’t know until when, as I used to be greeted with many unread msgs in the morning. One such morning I found that one guy was beaten up ( quite close-by !) I called up all the x.y.z phone numbers I have ( of course people I assumed would be present in the incident) most of the phones are switched off !! while those that rang, none  picked up. Finally I got one who said he is too tired and sleeping! By evening of course I got some more information in addition to the first message .This is via whattsapp. I filed my story from this information. My nokia phone screen is about 4 mm (phew)

One night, whatsapp keep beeping again. In the morning there was long list of “cases” , I read them all ( ran through them ) some are "not so serious" and most of them were intervened by police ( okay relax). In the evening another round of beeping started. Boys are beaten up!! Again I called up whomever I assumed would know. 

Everybody is somewhere doing something!!

I started to scroll back and “load earlier messages”. Got the relevant case with a number. The message is- one woman molested. Called up the given number, got a response that she is the one ( gotcha !) she told me to talk to her lawyer. I talked to the learned one and asked about the “case” of 'the girl'. But the lawyer keep repeating about the "beaten up in the court" thing.  I was trying to ask the incident the previous night and how things evolved. seems several incident had taken place within a day.  But the only information I managed to get from the telephonic conversation was “ NE student leader (s) was/were beaten up” .  Call the victim ? Am not sure , though he / they themselves keep beeping the messages ( I knew well they will not pick up the phone... people are beating them 
( only one ? how many ?)  !! how can I be so insensitive and insensible and ask silly question ?  )

10-20 minutes later, a series of beeping, one woman also beaten up along with the NE student  leaders ( by this time the information shows that the “victims” are more than one student leader !! ( she herself was updating).  I called up, she said she cannot talk ( she is inside the court!!)

Some would say, yes, rightly, go and find out for yourself !!  But on many occasion, besides the time constraint and disconnect information, “on the spot” inquiry is just not possible and by 7 pm this is the only information I get.

Yes, on the spot ( inquiry) or say "meeting" is another 'hard job". Two women assaulted, abused  (2013). With helpful friends got "one number" who was supposed to be a "cousin"  and the PR ( read contact person for speaking to media and main person following the case). It took me about a week to finally 'introduce" myself and get an "appointment". I have even reached the "area" where they stay. But still, i could not reached ( find) them (the meeting never happened) 

Somehow, I think I can sympathise, with the “mainland” national newspaper reporters who always make mistakes and report incidents and  matters “wrongly”.!

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