Malayalam channels were responsible & calm during the storm

Read a fantastic article summarizing the mature, level-headed approach of Malayalam language television channels during the Kerala floods this month. I have been following the news online and found them reading out the news in a much more calmer, softer and cautious manner than usually seen on other channels. On one hand while they were focussed on disseminating timely information, they also remembered to clamp down on fake news doing the rounds and also acted as distress centres themselves. Also of noteworthy mention: giving equal time to all the places affected, instead of just focussing on major cities.

The visible contrast and irony was the relative lack of coverage of the deluge from news media housed in capital of the country. They were still focussed on the Independence day celebrations, demise of Vajpayee, and a certain bollywood/hollywood engagement.

In the on-line space, I found TNM’s coverage the most in-depth and wide spread. That could be because the are based out of Bangalore, in South India.

On August 15, as news channels in the rest of India celebrated Independence Day, Malayalam news channels did not have time to pause. They were in the midst of an unprecedented crisis, with flood waters engulfing large portions of the state. This was a disaster of unimaginable proportions, and in the wrong hands, the coverage of the floods, too, could have been disastrous.
Luckily for Kerala, the Malayalam TV channels in the state decided to keep calm and deal with the crisis in the only right way to do it: with absolute maturity and zero theatrics. No one dived into water or got into a metaphorical bathtub. No one screamed or took credit for ‘being the first’ or ‘being the best’. They all prioritised being responsible instead.
Take News 18 Malayalam for instance. After a quick editorial meeting on August 15, the channel decided to change their entire layout. In place of the regular breaking news ticker, they introduced many layers of graphics for information dissemination.
The big decision taken at the meeting was to introduce a ticker called 'Good News'. At a time when Kerala was panicking, and rumours of dams bursting were spreading like wildfire, the 'Good News' ticker relentlessly told viewers about how much the water level was coming down in each reservoir, and relayed weather predictions. Another ticker told people not to panic, asked them to be careful, and communicated warnings issued by the Kerala government.
Distress calls
Improvising their coverage to help people caught in the worst flood that the state has faced in a century had become a priority for all channels, and each one rose to the occasion. Manorama News, News 18 Malayalam, Mathrubhumi, Asianet, Reporter Live, Jai Hind, Kaumudy, Janam and Media One, all served as distress call centres.
"We put out a number on which people could call us. People were frantic, they were not sure who could help. They wanted us to hand over their numbers to the CM’s office, to the Army, NDRF or Navy, to whoever could provide help,” recalls Johny Lukose, the Editor of Manorama News. “We confirmed people's locations and then handed over the information to the CM's office, that was co-coordinating with distress calls," he says.
Most of these channels received thousands of calls on their helpline, and many of them also suspend all ad breaks in order to show continuous coverage of floods. "The location of each person and their contact number was handed over to the CM’s office. We also made medical emergencies a priority," says an editor with News 18.
While all the channels carried a small portion of the distress calls they received on air, they wrote down details of each call, to hand to over to authorities and relief collectors. An editor with Reporter Live channel says that their web team has been so busy coordinating rescue and relief, that they hardly had time to update their own website. This was a big sacrifice, as a lot of revenue for media networks is through their online clicks.  
Asianet News received more than 45,000 distress calls in four days and they managed this massive volume by tying up with an IAS academy in Thiruvananthapuram. "We had given out a number to which people could SMS details if they or their relatives were stranded. Twenty staff members and 120 students of the 'I Learn' IAS Academy called back on these numbers and took down locations. These were then plotted on Google maps and handed over to rescue teams," says Vinu V John, Senior Co-ordinating Editor of Asianet News.
The channels also became platforms where people offered help real time. News 18 Malayalam believes that a crucial turn in their coverage was when Father Theodosius, from the Thiruvananthapuram Latin Archdiocese called on their helpline number and told the anchor on live that the diocese wanted to send 60 fishing boats for rescue missions, but wanted government help to understand where. The channel immediately called Kadakampally Surendran, an MLA from the capital city and Minister for Co-Operation, Tourism and Devaswom. He then called the diocese and immediately came back on the channel to announce that the government will transport these fishing boats and fishermen to areas where their help was needed.
After receiving multiple distress call from a location in Aluva in Ernakulam district, Asianet News arranged for a few fishermen and boats to be transported to the location. "We all had to combine journalism and rescue and relief efforts," says Vinu.
Tackling Fake News
By August 16, fake news, especially on the safety of dams, was spreading far and wide adding to the panic. ‘Malampuzha dam shutters to open in full capacity’, ‘Mullaperiyar dam has developed cracks’, ‘power to be cut all across Kerala’, were some of the alarming messages. Then, the News 18 team decided to introduce a new ticker to debunk fake news. The ticker would constantly display a rumour and call it out by pointing out what the fact was.
Manorama Online introduced a section called 'CrossChecked' and debunked fake news. From ‘a dangerous snake that could kill many with its venom’ to ‘chicken pox spreading in camps’, all kinds of rumours were laid to rest.
A positive outlook
While it would have been easy to paint a grim picture and fill the bulletins with tales of sorrow and struggle, most channels decided to play a role in the rebuilding of the state.
Mathrubhumi News is running a campaign called #WeShallOvercome asking for more relief, money into the Chief Minister's fund, and for stories of hope.
News 18 Malayalam launched two campaigns on August 20. One called 'Open your hearts, Open your homes' asking people to open up their houses to give temporary accommodation to those who did not have a house to go back to. The channel received 60 calls from Good Samaritans just in the first hour after the campaign was introduced. The list of names were handed over to government authorities in each district. The second campaign called 'Onam with them' urged viewers to donate a little bit of what they had kept aside for Onam celebrations to those impacted by the floods.
Although flood waters have receded in almost all places, Kerala faces the monumental task of cleaning and repairing, so that people from relief camps can go back to their houses. Asianet News has arranged 50 Mahindra jeeps to transport NSS volunteers in Chengannur, one of the regions worst affected by floods, to clean houses.
Many channels are planning to collect funds for fishermen whose boats were damaged during rescue missions.
Mature coverage 
The bigger news networks like Manorama and Asianet deployed as many reporters as possible on the ground, and telecast live updates continuously on both rescue and relief. Many reporters were stranded in places like Cheruthoni and Munnar, without food or a proper place to stay. With mobile networks crashing, they had to wait for hours to send information to the channel headquarters.
But through the crisis, even when reporters on ground knew their own houses were flooded and were reporting from precarious situations, they kept their calm. There was hardly any screeching or blame-games, even when highly distressed people called the channels or confronted reporters on ground, they were mature. There were aberrations, but largely a lesson for media elsewhere.
As Johnny Lukose points out, "This was a time to help people and put out facts. This was not a time to claim who broke a news first, got the first visual or who helped who."

Stand with Kerala

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its not over yet.

Priorities

 

 

 

Vajpayee

 

A B Vajpayee was one of the most significant figures of post 1947 India. The media is paying tributes to what a great leader he was, and rightly so. But I will remember him for the Kargil war. It was a master-stroke which achieved dual targets. He was able to win India, and the world. In order to understand what happened, one only need to revisit the events during May 1999 on Wikipedia.

In May 1999, the Vajpayee led coalition government lost the support of AIADMK, and the central government lost majoriy, reducing to a caretaker status till the October 1999 elections.

So the government turned around and launched the Kargil counter-attack. All this time, there were insurgents entering the Indian side of LOC with Pakistan provided weaponary. The Indian army launched Vijay, to capture these insurgents. The war went on for two months, and India was successful in capturing back her LOC.

In October 1999, the BJP led NDA won a comfortable margin of 303 seats, which was a stable majority. That government lasted 5 years.

Till this point in history, Vajpayee was playing it soft with our immediate neighbours. Everyone remembers the bus trip to Lahore, and the Agra summit. So it rightly came as a surprise when he declared full on war with thy neighbour. In doing so, the projected the image of a newly strengthened nation of India to the world. And in the process, he won his country too.

I can never imaging anyone from Congress going that far.

Fallout was exhausting. In a good way.

Caught the latest instalment of the Mission Impossible movie series at a cinema in Melbourne.  With new death defying stunts and editing, this is without and doubt the most impossible one of the series. There is so much action in it that it was just exhausting watching Cruize do all his stunts. In a good way. Did I mention he is 56 ?

This is only the second MI movie I have watched in a cinema. The first one was MI2, back when John Woo's style of slow motion action-choreography was all the rage. For fallout, they have chosen very fast, sometimes sped-up action, in bright lights. Its nice to see every director bring his own style to the franchise, but of course, in the MI series, it is not the director who is the star. It is the star himself.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is a testament to the miracle that is Tom Cruise Cruise is among Hollywood's last surviving superstars. And yet look at what this man is willing to endure to entertain us. He jumps from helicopters, fights hand to hand and rides bikes against the traffic without a helmet. Side note: The last one is not really an unbelievable stunt because it is very common in India. I have done it occasionally, on short stretches. :) The movie also features a now staple sequence of the famous Tom Cruize run, where he covers miles in a few minutes, running through cars and jumping from buildings. But sadly, there was no wire-drop sequence. That climax which involves sticking bombs helicopters and snowy mountain clips is so suspenseful.

But what kept distracting me constantly was watching Tom do the stunts. I remember speaking multiple times to myself that he is actually doing it himself ! I could visualize the protective wires from which he dangled, and how certain sequences were sped up to make it seem impossible. It sometimes annoying how these thoughts creep up, distracting one from watching the scenes on screen.

There's also Henry Cavill showing us that he can do more than just be Superman. I hear they had to digitally remove his moustache from his scenes in Justice League, and that might have contributed to that movies debacle. Its good to see that his acting and his moustache was justified in Fallout.

Fallout also has a lot of emotionally relevant scenes, where Ethan’s personal life from the previous movies is woven into the narrative. I felt and found it too…what’s the term…filmy. Having grown up on diet of rubbish Bollywood action movies, I could not digest it a big budget Hollywood production. What, the villain wants revenge, so he brings Hunt’s ex-wife to the location of the final bombing? So that he can personally destroy Hunt emotionally ?  Bah! Humbug!!. I found Luther’s exposition particularly cheesy, the one where he says Hunt only cared about two women in his life. Oh yeah ? What about Nyah from the second movie, who he definitely falls for ?  The point of that storyline was to remind the audience that Hunt was still human, and has his own problems, balancing personal and professional life. But, it was way to cheesy. Tom really cannot play such emotional scenes so close to the camera.

Also, is Hunt and his team the only member’s of the IMF ? We have seen six movies so far, and Hunt was disavowed in half of them. In the last 3, there was no other agent or team sent on a mission. They need to address the question of how big of an organization the IMF really is.

And why was Alec Baldwin’s character killed ? Such a fine actor.

And the final sequence of the movie is in Kashmir, India ? But there is not even a single India/Pakistani character/actor anywhere in the entire movie. All those scenes were shot in New Zealand, because they could not get permission to shoot in India.

Also, that scene from the trailer where he ramps a truck into another truck on what appears as an Indian road, that’s not in the movie. Minor offence.

At times the dialogues in the movie reminded me of my experiences from my own profession! Hunt improvises a lot, like we do in software projects, hehe. Wink, wink. When he says “I am working on it”, or “yet to figure that out”, I felt it was just how an Indian software company executes projects :)

Fallout deserves praise in every department. Its nice to see a franchise still holding strong, adding something new , while still retaining what made the original such a hit.