Im'print'ing bias

The Times of India carried a story on the front page with the headline: On Dashami, Muslim housewife kills Laskhar terrorist with an axe.
Muslim housewife? Dashami? What is the link? When you read the story, it talks about Ram vanquishing Raavan and Durga slaying the demon, and therefore, on Dashami, a Muslim housewife slays the modern rakshas, a Lashkar terrorist. We tend to get carried away by the Dusshera mood , but carrying a news story with this hackneyed comparison is taking it too far.
The print media is now getting desperate. In trying to compete with the electronic media, it is trying out all possible gimmickry in headlines and handling of news stories to steal the eyeballs from the LED generation, which prefers the visual deafening screams of our news anchors to the quiet written words. In the process, news stories have ceased to be neutral.
The event was certainly newsworthy, but its presentation was problematic. Why should the media ascribe religious identity to the housewife, who has displayed raw courage in killing a dreaded terrorist? What would the news headline and news writing style be if the woman was a Hindu?
According to the report, the terrorist tried to misbehave with the woman, and was, therefore, axed to death. This is a story of a woman defending herself from a groping man, who happened to be a terrorist. Is courage or self-defence bound by religion? Gender, yes. Religion?
The presentation reveals the ugly truth that along with politicians, the media, too, has become a pawn in the communal game.
Journalists are meant to be passive observers and active listeners, with attention to detail. Their observation and attention must be translated into impartial reportage. What we read instead are views of reporters in the guise of reporting. Another example: the day the law minister Veerappa Moily announced measures to speed up the justice system in the country, a newspaper report said: In a country where courts take decades to deliver verdicts, this is sure to sound audacious. Law minister Veerappa Moily is attempting the unthinkable -- reducing the life of litigation from an average 15 years at present to one year, and that too in just three years from now.
What the law minister says might actually sound audacious. But a newsperson is not supposed to lace his/her report with opinionated phrases like “this is sure to sound audacious” and “Moily is attempting the unthinkable”.
Moily might really be attempting the unthinkable. But who is the reporter to debate that in a news report and, in the process, bias the reader? In the same line, the report says, “…and that too in just three years from now”. The use of the four-letter word “just” just changes the report from being objective to subjective.
We all have strong opinions, and the media has space for analysis and opinions. It is tempting to pass judgements on events. But it is in sensible reporting/anchoring to resist such temptation.