I had watched the horror of 26/11 unfold on television. I still remember staring at the screen, confounded with fear and rage, watching vignettes of a burning dome, hospital walls pockmarked by bullet-holes and a seemingly unceasing trail of violence. I also cannot forget being shown an injured man near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus being taken to hospital; a television reporter from a national channel caught hold of his blood-spattered wrist and thrust it near the camera.

A journalist’s job does not end with filing a story. The ability to judge what is news and then present it objectively without compromising on core values and ethics are critical aspects of this profession. The TV reporter’s spontaneous act seemed to conform to the unethical template, which has become integral to Indian journalism. In the rush to compete in a demanding market, journalists are coming under pressure to tweak content, suspend integrity and indulge in questionable conduct. The Mumbai attack was an opportunity for India’s media for a course correction. But the media squandered that opportunity and, on occasions, exploited a national crisis.

Most of the TV channels flouted the home ministry’s instructions regarding coverage. The Pakistani handlers were following the live news feeds to pass on instructions to the terrorists, compromising the security operations in progress. The dissemination of information is a central function of the media, but discretion ought to be exercised when there is a possibility of the information being misused.

The pictures that were beamed live, or printed in the days to come, were an extension of an aesthetic that seeks to bring the audience dangerously close to the source of the trauma without reflecting on the possible consequences. One national channel beamed the bloodied face of Abu Ismail, Ajmal Kasab’s partner, moments after he was killed. The channel subsequently morphed the corpse’s head, but the presenter did not forget to remind the audience in his shrill tone that his was the only network that was showing commendable restraint. That bit of restraint is now gone as well. We can now choose to see (or, alternatively, close our eyes to) everyday images such as the blood-soaked body of a policeman slumped on a chair in a Maoist attack or the chilling footage of a man killing his rival during the violence in Nandigram. More worryingly, days after the carnage, the media showed an unmistakable tendency to align itself with the hawkish position on Pakistan. Simi Garewal’s comment about Pakistani flags atop Mumbai’s slums was benign compared to apparently cerebral discussions on nuking Pakistan on prime-time television. The space for meaningful dialogue continues to shrink in the media and in the world at large.

It is true that a model code of conduct had not been in place to guide the media’s coverage of the attack. Journalists, being human, were prone to react unreasonably at times to the outrage. But journalists are also special in that they serve a public institution, which is capable of influencing collective opinion. They must create, and then adhere to, the code. In some professions, the heart cannot rule the head.