The Homey Taste of Lies

The Indian media is out of control. Its harmful consequences on Indian society will be felt as it eliminates the existence of an informed and public minded citizenry

- Amir Ali

IN ways similar to the invention of gunpowder and the nuclear bomb changing the course of war, advancements in communications technology have changed the way wars happen, or at least the way they are reported. The fog of war has become so dense that it is now almost impossible to know what is going on. Decades ago, there used to be the respected and almost institutional presence of the war correspondent, who was informed in military history, had the courage to be on the battlefront and could report with measured responsibility. Martha Gellhorn was among the first women war correspondents when she reported on the Spanish Civil War in 1937 for Collier’s magazine. Towards the end of the Second World War, when she was refused permission to accompany the allied forces landing on Normandy beach because she was a woman, she used the subterfuge of posing as a member of the medical team. The reporting of the Vietnam war is believed to have led to the kind of opposition back in the US that meant the war could not be prolonged. Throughout the 1990s and from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, emerged the phenomenon of the ‘embedded’ journalist, chaperoned to the front with the troops, with the obviously biased consequences on the report filed, that this entailed. In the ongoing Gaza conflict, the Israelis have restricted the entry of foreign correspondents with the patronisingly unconvincing excuse of the battle zone being too unsafe. On a few occasions in late 2023, BBC and CNN journalists were taken to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to ‘show’ the tunnels that were hidden underneath.