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by Ranga Kalansooriya

"It was like a movie...."

"How did they film all these shots.....they were horrendous..."

These were some comments we over heard or made while watching the coverage by various news media of the attack on the New York World Trade Centre

Almost all the major media institutions in the world focused on giving wide coverage - at their best - to the September 11 devastation in the United States. Hundreds, if not thousands, of journalists were dumbstruck at the devastation caused to two cities in the US.

In contrast to the situations here - the experiences that local journalists have had when covering terrorist attacks - we hardly heard of any harassment of journalists by authorities in America.

"There were no emergency rules or regulations on news reporting on the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre," said Thalif Deen, Head of the Inter Press Services Bureau in New York's UN Headquarters.

"The only restrictions covered access to the site of the disaster on the first two days. Even foreign journalists were permitted to the site on Friday (14), but with clearance from the New York City Police Department," Thalif told the Daily News via e-mail.

"However, there were some political pundits and talking heads who complained that the media was giving out too much information to the `enemy' -- particularly about US battle plans against terrorists," he added.

Some pundits could view the role of the media in such an unprecedented incident as dangerous or unnecessary. We have many such talking heads here as well who seem to be unaware that the more people are informed, the more aware they are.

Stories of threats or attacks on journalists by police or the armed forces were common in the media soon after a major incident in the recent past. The best example was when a Kfir jet crashed in Kurana. One Air Force official was impudent enough to take the law into his own hands and attack a journalist.

Disasters need world attention. Terrorist attacks should get the maximum publicity, under whatever condition, to show the world the ruthlessness of terrorists. This argument held good in the US last week.

A classic example to prove the advantage of better media coverage for disasters, was seen in Mozambique during the recent floods. More than three fourths of the land was inundated and people were struggling for life. One of the poorest nations in the world, Mozambique did not possess resources to launch a massive relief program.

South Africa provided whatever assistance it could, including a helicopter which was used specially for evacuations. However, one correspondent of a major news organisation managed to board the chopper with the assistance of the authorities. The unbelievable visuals he filed throughout the world made hundreds of international organisations bring a record number of donations to the West African nation. One such visual shot by the correspondent was of a pregnant woman delivering her child on top of a tree.

In contrast, the earthquake tragedy in Gujarat, India during the same period did not bring in such a huge amount of donations. Though the devastation was relatively high -- more than 10,000 people were killed -- than in Mozambique, the funds that the West African nation received was much higher than India got, according to research conducted by BBC journalist Isobel Eaton.

"The main reason for this huge difference between India and Mozambique was the variation of media coverage that the two countries received," Eaton says. Gujarat was not very conducive to coverage, foreign journalists alleged. "There were so many red tapes," said one journalist from Nepal.

Terrorist attacks are no different. Though they were in two different locations, Sri Lanka too has experienced situations similar to New York and Washington. But the question is whether such incidents received equal attention through the media.

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