Sunday, May 24, 2009

My god!

Essentials of journalism: Get facts. Get opinions. Get counter-opinions. Question everything.
Now here are (or what appear to be) the facts:
A seven-year-old girl is found dead inside a politician's car.
There are blood stains on her underwear.
Post-mortem report suggests 'smothering' as cause of death.
Police find out the child was also being treated for congenital heart disease.
Cop goes on record to suggest the girl died of a stroke, because of the heart disease. Explains away her presence in the politician's car by saying she must have felt sick and so crawled into the car to sleep.

The reporter reports whatever the cop says. The entire report is based on opinion. One cop's opinion. No doctors are quoted. Further details of the post-mortem report are not revealed. The girl's family is not quoted, not even with reference to the child's history of heart disease.

No questions are raised - not even the obvious one about why a sick, tired child would choose a politician's car to break into (unless the car was routinely left unlocked through the day), and how the child who supposedly went to sleep in the cool comfort of the car, then suffered a stroke while she slept.

Does it make any sense? Is this the obvious conclusion you would jump to when you heard the facts? Why is the investigating officer jumping to such conclusions? More importantly, why is the reporter not questioning those assumptions, or even the speculatory comments by the cop? And why is any news editor not intervening?

One might even allow for the possibility that the reporter was inexperienced and the desk editor somehow unavailable, why is the story still there up on the internet, without any changes or updates? I mean, my god!

14 comments:

Prasoon said...

I wish justice is done.

The reporter is being sick and seems to have lost his brains or probably sold them off to avoid being in confrontation. All a part of big cover up this seems.

हिन्दीवाणी said...

I don,t know when justice will be done. But it's a shame...

Pranav..... said...

Ya the car owner is the State BJP Head. What do you expect? It's even likely there were some goons, the politician and extortion or suchlike involved; the amount was not paid by the poor family so they killed the girl. Once again a conspiracy theory but it just shows how simple it is to throw out the "stroke" theory.

Indian Homemaker said...

I hope justice is done. I hope enough noise is made.

Anonymous said...

My God! seriously Annie whats happening..

Pixie said...

This is such a sad sad thing really... she was a little child, a 7 yr old...

It being a politician's car, we can only hope for justice and not expect it.
How sick can one be?!


Hopped over from IHM's place :)
Loved your posts, esp the one on Feminism...

Poonam said...

This scared me to the core. Something in me can't be silent about it. My silence means one day I too can be disposed of so conveniently. :(

I am going to twitter your blogpost.

1conoclast said...

blood stains on her underwear...? oh my God!!! What is happening???

I am reminded of John Grisham's "A Time to Kill"...

Anonymous said...

wat is wrong with the world wat is wrong with all of us!! why isnt anybody strangling that cop to spill out the facts, listen people there are laws to get every one sued its jus that we dont excersice them. and why are we all so scared. they culprits can shut a few people not hundreds of them. its jus that we are not raising a voice together.we need to be aware and start a revolution save lives and save humanity.

sonal said...

Hi Annie, ive met u annonymoussly on caferati and read some of your comments and posts.Nice blog u got here. Wanted t coment on this post in particular since i am frm nagpur and was wondering why this story died without further leads. Interesting.Your journalistc nose is a work here and its good!

Unknown said...

I know it feels bad to read such reports that goes by cops' version.

But, is it not possible that the reporter got instruction from his boss to report it just as the cops said or the copy was watered down at desk. It's quite quite common in daily papers, even if they are TOI or HT.

Rajashree said...

The link to the story isn't working any more. Shayad tumhare blog ka asar ho...

Anonymous said...

so the politician raped the young girl, felt ashamed about it, then strangled the girl so she wouldnt talk.

context clues, dammit, context clues.

Pallav said...

And this too gets swiped under the rug and lost in the pages of the newspapers...

Sickening.

N

Tweets by @anniezaidi