Even as Bihar mourns the deaths of over 150 children owing to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), a section of the media milked the grave situation to boost TRPs. Some journalists irresponsibly barged into the ICUs of one of the hospitals treating most of the children for live reporting. There were also journalists from the language media, local channels and publications asking the right questions and helping the afflicted children reach hospitals. 

The contrasting examples clearly serve as a testament to the dichotomy of media reportage.

On June 15, a video of TV9 Consulting Editor Ajit Anjum went viral. This video showed him reporting live from the ICU of Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH). Anjum was seen questioning and chiding a doctor, who was busy treating children. 

Two days later, another Delhi-based anchor, Anjana Om Kashyap, did a report from the ICU of SKMCH. Like Anjum, she spoke loudly and grilled a busy doctor. She also interviewed a relative of an unwell child. Before the live reporting of these two anchors from the ICU, a Republic Bharat journalist had also done a piece to camera from the ICU. 

On June 21, Anjum took to Facebook to admit that he should not have entered the ICU. He wrote in a Facebook post, “In one line, I will say that I should not have entered in the ICU. He also expressed his concerns about mismanagement in the hospital, lack of doctors and lack of proper facilities.” He concluded: “Despite all this, I am not justifying myself in entering the ICU. Last point is this, it (entering in ICU) should have been avoided (sic).”

Kashyap defended herself on Twitter, writing: “The propagandists forgot about the death of 108 children. Those showing crocodile sympathy for the doctor, stop the propaganda about heckling, let me remind you – 108 children have died till now.”

These instances of ‘parachute journalism’ sensationalising the AES outbreak came under heavy attack on social media. However, what went unnoticed were instances of local journalists helping out while carrying out their journalistic duties.

On June 16, a Patna-based senior journalist Pushya Mitra posted on Facebook, urging citizens to come together to educate rural people about AES and the methods to tackle it. Minutes after the post went up, other journalists, students, youths and some NGOs came forward to help. Jharkhand-based freelance journalist Anand Dutta contacted Pushya Mitra and began raising funds. Within a few days, a team of enthusiastic youths was ready to go to villages and distribute medical aid and make people aware about AES. People from Delhi, Kolkata and other cities, too, provided medical assistance.

Pushya Mitra said, “There were 2-3 teams with us. One team had more than 40 youths. Mithila Student Union had a team of around 100 youngsters. Apart from that, a team of dozen youths and students was working in Samastipur. They not only made people aware, but admitted some affected children at SKMCH. Our team had so far covered more than 150 villages.”

Dutta also went to Muzaffarpur to help. He installed 12 fans, four water purifiers and repaired four fans, and provided other facilities for the parents of admitted children from the corpus raised for the awareness programme on AES. “We not only installed water purifiers and fans, but we also got the hospital cleaned. We provided food for parents as well, as many come from very poor background,” said Dutta.

The team has so far raised over ₹5 lakh of which ₹3 lakh remains, to be utilised for the benefit of AES survivors. Pushya Mitra says about 300 AES-afflicted children have been discharged from SKMCH and his team is going to take the addresses of the affected children from the hospital authority and visit their houses to know their health condition after some days. “We are planning to meet all these children after 10-15 days. We will conduct a survey of these children to know whether they are leading normal lives or facing any neurological problems and submit the report to the state government for rehabilitating them.”

In another instance, a Muzaffarpur-based journalist called Amir Hamza was on assignment in the area on June 19 when he saw a woman crying in Mithanpura near Pani Tanki. “A six-year-old child was in her lap in a semi-conscious state. When I asked her, she said that her son has fever.” Hamza says the child had been admitted in SKMCH but later discharged. The woman took her son back home but he fell ill again hours later. “Following this, she took an auto and got dropped near Pani Tanki. Upon reaching there, she was clueless as to where to go, because SKMCH is far away from Mithanpura.”

Hamza decided to help her. “Kejriwal Matri Sadan is quite close-by from Mithanpura, so I took her on my bike and admitted the child there. A photographer working with a Hindi daily in Muzaffarnagar saw me and clicked a photo. I didn’t even realise that. Later, a journalist friend posted it on his Facebook account tagging me, which went viral,” he said. Hamza says he never intended his actions to go viral: “It was not intentional.”

Some local journalists told this reporter that the live reporting from ICUs by star anchors created difficulties for them. They claim they’re no longer allowed to enter the ICU to take videos or photographs. 

Doctors in SKMCH told Newslaundry that they are not authorised to speak to the media anymore. They also criticised the manner in which anchors reported from the ICU. Dr Bimal Kumar Karak, the president-elect of the Patna chapter of the Indian Medical Association, said, “Mediapersons should introspect what they have done. Other sections of media should criticise them, because if we do that, the media fraternity will say that we are indulging in politics. It is a demoralising trend. Media representatives should have posed their queries to the government, but they were grilling doctors instead.”

The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), an independent body established by the News Broadcasters Association, has said an investigation will take place if complaints are lodged against journalists and anchors who reported from ICUs. SY Quraishi, a member of the NBSA, said, “We have a clear rule that anchors or journalists are not supposed to enter the hospital ICU. A meeting is scheduled on July 10. If complaints are lodged against them, we will look into the matter.”

(The author is a Patna-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)