"Troubled reflections: Reporting voilence Media's symbiotic relationship with Violence Ethnic Violence,terrorism and war"

This book offers a firsthand account of reporting violence in Punjab, once considered toughest assignments for journalists. During the peak of militancy in Punjab from April 1978 to 1995, the journalists were at the receiving end of the morbid State and the trigger-happy melancholic militants. These torturous years were marked by a real fear of the gun, as a large number of editors, reporters and their associates were prey to the marauders in different garbs. It was also a period when information was hard to obtain and write about as the police laced almost each news story with lies and the apathetic bureaucracy mired in corruption, indulged in subterfuge. The militants dictated their own terms for reporting which the journalists could ignore at the risk of their lives. The wily divided politicians played their crafty games as did a few media houses. In this scenario, journalists found themselves in a stifling and frightful situation. There was always that lurking fear of the gun. But much worse was the paucity of authentic information that could be weaved into convincing news stories and analyses. Information came in bits and pieces and at times there was no second line of source to cross check. Journalists were supposed to sniff and filter it, and they tried that.