When floods are not news

Floods in West Bengal have taken a toll of 78 lives in the last few weeks and have affected the lives of over seven million people in 16 districts of the state. But leaving aside a few notable exceptions (unhappily, this newspaper was not one of them), the media outside the state has shown scant regard for the loss of human lives and the material devastation caused by these floods. It could be argued that the Prime Minister's visit to Brazil and Cuba, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's outlandish statements in his autobiography, revelations about the Jessica Lall murder case and the latest quarterly GDP growth numbers are more interesting for newspaper readers and television channel viewers alike and, therefore, will be ranked higher in news priority than the death of 78 people in floods in West Bengal. But should the sense in news rooms of what is important or relevant get so skewed that such major developments receive only cursory mention""if at all""and that many newspapers and most television news channels should give the subject a go-by?

Media analysts will explain that the business compulsions of newspapers and TV news channels, in what is admittedly a competitive market, demand that the content dished out by them must always stay relevant for their readers and viewers. If important sections of them, as various surveys have established, belong to the economically well-off and English-reading categories of people living in towns and cities, then floods affecting poor people in villages can no longer be as riveting a news item as the Jessica Lall murder case. There do exist highly evolved""though by no means perfect""surveys to measure what people are reading or watching on television channels on a daily basis. Modern-day news managers make periodic course corrections in their news judgments on the basis of these surveys. Which is why, perhaps, floods in Surat (a city that is doing well, thanks to its thriving diamond and textiles business) get more coverage than the floods in West Bengal villages, and a plane crash gets more media space than a railway accident (the treatment would be slightly better if the accident involves a Rajdhani or a Shatabdi), and elections in the north-eastern states will pass off without many people elsewhere in the country noticing them.

But even as it plays to its market (lest viewers reach for their remotes), the media cannot disclaim its larger responsibility of playing the role of watchdog and conscience keeper. Newspapers may have no choice but to recognize a phenomenon such as the secession of the successful, brought about by the gulf between rich and poor, as much as US politicians are forced to focus on middle class interests and not address the problems of the underclass in that country (because the middle class is not interested). But having done that, can they go on to justify viewing every news development through the narrow prism of prime reader interest? Floods in a Bengal village""for that matter, in any part of the country""are a human story, they often point to the failure of the state in river management, and as Amartya Sen has argued, famines do not develop in democratic countries because the media keeps the government alert. But what happens when the media defines its job differently? To argue that the media should ignore developments that do not directly affect their paying audience would be to miss this larger point and is tantamount to abdicating an important responsibility.