#GadchiroliAttack and #MasoodAzhar: The coverage by some TV primetime shows and newspapers

Late Tuesday night, 15 security personnel and one civilian were killed in what has been deemed a Maoist-triggered landmine in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the incident is the largest case of casualties in the district as a result of Naxal terror since 2012.

On the same day, the news broke that Masood Azhar had been declared an international terrorist by the United Nations Security Council. While both events are significant in the national context, they were prioritised differently by some sections of the media.

Republic TV’s primetime debate(s) found no mention of the Gadchiroli attack and focused its energy on what it deemed the “greatest diplomatic achievement of the Modi government” i.e., the declaration of Azhar as a terrorist. Even as it used the hashtag #ModiCrushesPak, this was not the central focus—it was on the larger theme of India’s hand in allegedly changing China’s public policy. Arnab Goswami also focused on the “sulking Vadra family” and its response to the move. The debate’s other two segments were devoted to #VoteCutterCong (“‘V’ for Vadra or ‘V’ for Vote Cutter”, it asked) and #JaiShriRamChant.

On Times Now, The Newshour @ 9 also only focused on how “India scores a diplomatic and political victory as the United Nations declared Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar a global terrorist” with no talk of the attack at all. Navika Kumar opened the show by congratulating “every single viewer and every single citizen of India” while the hashtag #ModiCornersMasood was used. The Congress and “vote-cutting” was another major feature of her show.

Rahul Shivshankar’s India Upfront continued asking if Modi has proved that a mazboot sarkar can ensure a mazboot bharat, backing the “mazboot” claims with what they believed was the Prime Minister’s “muscular approach … in the war on terror”.

Meanwhile, NDTV engaged in 30-minute separate discussions on both Gadchiroli and Azhar in its primetime debate Left Right and Centre. Mirror Now’s The Urban Debate focused on the Gadchiroli attack and paid no heed to Azhar’s story.

In the print media, leading papers such as The Hindu, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times and The Times of India carried both stories on their front pages. Across all papers, both stories were above the fold. In The Times of India, the Azhar story was presented on the flap and continued as a full page spread on Page 9. The Gadchiroli attack was the lead story under the flap and its continuation on Page 12 was just four columns long.