About
The book ‘Media and Terror | Facts and Fiction’ aims to highlight the language which media houses ubiquitously adopt when it comes to reporting terror cases. More interesting, however, is the manner in which these media houses arrive at ‘conclusive’ speculations over the involvement of particular groups, long before the official reports/statements are issued by the Investigating Officer or the Forensic Team that is looking into the evidence.
Although the Television Media plays a more important/prominent role in framing the unconsciousness of masses in this regard, the role played Print Media is equally conspicuous. The book will showcase all the articles – published in 12 leading English and Kannada dailies – related to the infamous ‘Karnataka Terror Module’ that witnessed the arrests of a journalist, a DRDO researcher and many others.
Highlight points, from all the articles, will be printed alongside. Since the goal of this book is not to ‘point a finger at’/‘accuse’/‘allege’ any wrongdoings or misreporting by any particular newspaper, it will therefore consist of no specific analysis. It will only feature a few articles on the general semantic problem of terror reporting. These articles will consider the ‘Karnataka Terror Module’ reporting – that has been documented in the book – as the basis on which their claims may be substantiated.
The selected newspapers are –
English: Deccan Chronicle, The Hindu, Deccan Herald, Indian Express, Times of India
Kannada: Udayavani, Hosa Diganta, Vartha Bharti, Kannada Prabha, Vijaya Karnataka, Vijaya Vani, Praja Vani
Sources
All the newspaper clippings, to be printed in the book, are being accessed from the archives of Media Watch group of Students Islamic Organisation of India, Karnataka.
