Raging bulls?

A strong and sudden dose of negative G-forces causes a redout, retinal damage and blind rage, mostly online

Tragedies somehow bring out the worst in us. The Bhoja Air crash was just such an occasion. What should’ve been a time for nationwide mourning and comforting those who were struggling to come to terms with their own unbearable and unimaginable loss, was turned into a feeding frenzy for the piranhas of social media.

At around 6:40PM on Friday night, Twitter came alive with the news of an aircraft having gone down somewhere in the greater Rawalpindi area. At the time, it was raining cats and dogs outside and the sound of rolling thunder was deafening. At first, there were rumours that a chopper had gone down. I assumed that the loss of life would be minimal, as military pilots and their passengers were trained in escaping from doomed aircraft. Then, a few minutes later, it emerged that the downed aircraft may have been a passenger plane. Jolted out of my daze, I leapt to turn on the TV, hoping to catch some details in the top-of-the-hour updates. But as soon as the headline music ended and the news anchor appeared on screen, the power went out. Cursing my luck, I picked up my phone and began browsing the mobile version of the Twitter website in search of accurate information.

By the time the power came back, it had been confirmed that the maiden flight for Bhoja Air had crashed into a residential area with 127 souls on board. As the television flickered back to life, I saw my old friend, Zarghoon Shah, reporting live from what I could best describe as a scene from a war movie. Debris was strewn everywhere and a lack of adequate light meant that the cameraman was struggling very hard to keep focus on what little visuals he could muster. For the next two hours, I was glued to the screen. Occasionally, I would switch between channels, but I would always return to the Jeem as they were the ones who had the footage first. Also, I felt an affinity for the coverage, seeing as it was a familiar face that was narrating these terrible events to me. In all of these two hours, I did not see one, repeat, one corpse or even a speck of blood, so committed was the cameraman to his cause.

Soon after, I was joined by my friend and journalist Taha Siddiqui, and together we channel surfed, looking at how each channel was covering this tragedy. As was obvious, the coverage was chaotic and channels had cameras and reporters live from every place imaginable, including Bhoja Airline’s offices, the Karachi airport, the Islamabad airport and God knows where else. As we flipped channels, we speculated on what would be happening in the newsrooms of each channel at that particular point in time. The ones that were unabashedly airing shots of dismembered bodies got switched immediately. Others, where overzealous reporters were seen asking the most ludicrous questions from bereaved family members also met a similar fate.

After scrolling through the 30-odd news outlets my cable operator provides me access to, I would always end up at the Jeem, whose coverage was the most level-headed of the night. Granted, every now and then they would cut to a panicking reporter somewhere in the field who had no idea what he was saying. This, we both figured, was because in the reporter’s ear, on the talkback, was an arrogant producer, screaming and cursing at the top of his lungs. “Story, beeper, footage, updates, tickers, stand straight while you’re onscreen,” would be the mantra said producer would be hammering into the poor field reporter’s brain. And at the end of the day, the poor guy would slip, saying something insensitive, or incoherent, or even out of place. As would all the anchors that were commenting live on the incident. As would nearly all the ‘analysts’ that were called on air to pontificate.

But spare a thought for that young man, standing out there in the rain, while all around him, pandemonium reigned supreme. Blood and guts as far as the eye could see and all he was expected to do was to keep his cool and report the facts. I hate to break it to you folks, but this person was also human. The fact that he or she wasn’t in tears should be good enough for you. At least you got your fix of the latest news out of the crash site.

But was this good enough? Absolutely not. For days after the incident and even today, people are going after the media as if they are responsible for the crash. Accusations of cheap sensationalism and making money off the blood of the innocent flew around like so much pollen on the information super highway. It was a complete redout, that strong and sudden dose of negative G-forces which causes retinal damage and blind rage. Twitter-activists spewing hellfire and brimstone wanted nothing better than to burn down the headquarters of major TV channels across the country. But they also wanted to live-tweet all the information that the idiot box was spewing forth. It was madness like I’ve never seen before. Except when raging bulls come charging down. This outrage had no human face. It was the face of an animal. An animal on a bloodlust. Acting all holier-than-thou. Sickening. Just sickening.

Follow @mightyobvious on Twitter for more incoherence in 160 characters or less