A natural disaster in Mumbai or Delhi even if not too severe in nature immediately gets the Indian broadcast news media in overdrive mode. “Breaking News” updates are pushed to the viewers every hour if not every few minutes. Everything else takes a backseat as television journalists and cameramen scamper through water or rubble… whatever the case may be.

But sadly, only the Indian metros of Mumbai and Delhi command that kind of a clout from the Indian news channels, specially the English ones.

As one of the most senior Indian journalists Rajdeep Sardesai recently said in a blog post, Indian news channels need to know that there is an India that exists beyond the Vindhyas.

With incessant rains in Chennai over the last few weeks, the situation there is glum to say the least. However, English news channels have only just woken up to this natural disaster. It was only when news poured in of the Chennai airport shutting down due to water logging on the runway, did many realise the gravity of the situation down south.

The natural calamity has left more than 250 people dead and thousands have been rendered homeless.

After waiting for some kind of push, news channels are now also participating in aiding the victims who have been stranded in the most inundated areas across the rain-battered Tamil Nadu. News channels are attempting to provide the nation with timely updates about the torrential rains of Chennai… albeit a tad too late in the day.

In his blog, Sardesai discussed the issue and blamed the lack of coverage by national news channels on the “tyranny of distance.” Since most national bureaus are located in Delhi, news around the national capital gains prominence than those in other parts of the country. According to him, the only solution behind this ignorance by the national media towards such a serious incident was by combining local and national content i.e by giving space to local news in the national news channels. “Maybe we need to have two national bureaus, one in Delhi and one south of the Vindhyas,” he suggested.
News channels have evidently shown the divide between the coverage of news from the north to south of India. Indiantelevision.com tried to get hold of a few news channels that have invested some efforts in reporting the incident.

Take a look…

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