The New York Times has been diligently carrying stories on the earthquake that are being churned out by its zealous correspondents stationed in India and Pakistan. In its October 11, 2005 edition, NYT had a poignant story: An Earthquake's Pain Unites Two Rivals, for the Moment. All fine, but somewhere in Somini Sengupta's copy was a mention about the Indian news agency Press Trust of India being "state-run."
Trade and tourism has inched up in recent years. Transportation links have been extended, including a bus service begun with great fanfare last April, allowing people to travel between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad for the first time in a half-century. (The service was indefinitely postponed Monday because of quake damage, the state-run Press Trust of India reported.)
That's certainly news to someone who started his journalistic career with PTI. And one is indeed used to the rampant ignorance about this Indian news agency that one gets to see all around, especially among fellow journalists. When I joined PTI, my parents were certain that their son was joining a PSU. Friends, who had joined the profession before I had, wondered why I was joining a sarkari organisation. I myself had little clue.
But after joining PTI, and staying there for a few years I realised it is anything but even a quasi-governmental organsation. It is as much state-run as the Indian Express is. It is, in fact, a cooperative owned by newspapers. The board members primarily consist of newspaper owners only. Shobhana Bhartia of Hindustan Times has just been elected its new chairperson. So much for Bhartia being a government plant in India's Xinhua.
Most Indian journalists I have come across don't have the faintest idea what PTI, or for that matter UNI, is. I joined PTI when its chairman was CR Irani, and my friends at the Statesman at that time did not know this for a fact. So one can't really blame Sengupta who probably thinks PTI is as much state-run as Xinhua is in China. Or maybe not. I mean, it is possible it is not Sengupta's fault. Reporters are used to copies being mauled by over-exuberant subs who chip in with their bit of armchair reporting.
Yes, it is possible (repeat, possible) that someone else inserted that error. If you look at the original story, the lines "The service was indefinitely postponed Monday because of quake damage, the state-run Press Trust of India reported" are in brackets. It is possible that some brilliant sub might have been trying to add her/her own two cents. You never know. ;)
Nevertheless, it is not a bloomer that one wants to see in the New York Times. As it is we are so used to seeing a truncated Kashmir in its maps of the Indian subcontinent. Those are not bloomers by any yardstick, one can concede. For the moment, we can keep guessing and debating as to what is an error of omission, and what one of commission.
