Wake up Toto

So the question about the use of gory photos raises its ugly head again as ethic-wielding, armchair experts again shower brimstone and fire on the 'irresponsible media' (if only I had a rupee for every time I heard that) for subjecting readers to the bloody truth that was the evening of July 13.

Do we really have to see those photos, raged a bunch of folks. Don't like it, do you? Not the kind of start you wanted on Thursday? Deepak Lokhande of DNA sensibily replied in a great editorial piece, "Was it a good morning of yours that we spoilt?" It certainly wasn't one for us.



The Home Minister would like us to know that it's been a whopping 31 months since the city's last terror attack. Once in three years is apparently a pretty good record. Is it therefore for this government, that the media must mask terror, put a sensitive picture out so as to not affect or enrage the masses? The PTI photographer who took this bloody picture of bodies piled up in a truck didn't go looking for it. It was there for everyone to see. He was doing his job, as were all the other photographers, cameramen and journalists who were witness to blood and guts at the site of the blasts. I'm unsure of what all these folks yelling ethics expected the journalists to do. Put away their pens and cameras until the clean-up was finished? Not visit hospitals where doctors were slogging away to stich up gaping wounds or extract shrapnel from festering cuts?

And then there's the question of children. Oh yes, the kids. The ones whose parents are lapping up Dexter, Bones, Castle or other shows that deal with homicide during family TV time. The ones who probably play games like Grand Theft Auto and Diablo that aren't exactly about rainbows and unicorns, FYI. Children are more exposed to gore and violence today that their parents ever were, so the standards that applied to you aren't relevant any more. If your kid's 12 or 13, they've already watched a plane crash into a tower and a terrorist run around shooting people in a train station. Maybe the real person who has to grow up is you.

Your children will grow up to witness more terror, maybe again in this city and across the world. The innocent will continue to be victims of planned attacks. And the media will or rather should, continue to hold up a mirror to these events when they happen to let the world know that their governments have failed, that terror is alive and that so much more still remains to be done to arrest the problem.

Wake up Toto, we're not in Eden anymore.