By IANS
New Delhi : Veteran journalist Mark Tully called upon the media to demonstrate some responsibility in reporting the northeast.
Tully was delivering a lecture here Saturday on “Telling the North East story: conflict and the media”, organised by the Assam Association to mark its diamond jubilee celebrations.
Tully said: “The media is enjoying all the powers with no responsibility” and added: “It is infinitesimally more commercialised than it was in my days”.
Tully, a Briton who has spent most of his journalistic career in India, did not spare western journalists either and said most of them came to India only looking for some sensational story.
He also blamed the army for the alienation of the northeast saying: “It is in dealing with the militants that India really needs to rethink its position. You have allowed the army to perform the duty of the police. This is not the role of the army. Nor is it trained to do this.”
Recalling his own experience of enlisting in the British Army, Tully said: “We are trained to fight the enemy and therefore when we fight someone we necessarily consider him an enemy.”
He also criticised the poor nature of intelligence gathering by the Indian agencies and said no good intelligence can be collected against the militants by threatening the villagers.