The News Minute| September 23, 2014| 4.30 pm IST
The death of a young man at Delhi Zoo was tragic but the reporting on his death, was well, inappropriate.
Though it is unclear how exactly the young man fell inside the enclosure, according to some news reports, he climbed the enclosure, somehow lost his balance, and fell in. According to eye witnesses, the tiger did not attack him initially for about 10 minutes. When some others gathered outside the enclosure threw stones at the tiger, the tiger retaliated and mauled the young man to death. The wall of the enclosure is reportedly low.
As is their practice, television news channels reporting on the incident gave the report a hashtag. Some of them gave them a hashtag that was inappropriate.
News X and Headlines Today used #tigerterror while CNN-IBN used #Killertiger.
"Killer tiger" would have been right if the tiger had strayed into human habitat, but in this case, the young man fell into the tiger’s enclosure.
Without going into the prudence of the young man’s actions, his death was tragic enough without the unnecessary hashtags.
Highlighting the attitude of zoo visitors particularly their disrespect for rules, environmental journalist Bahar Dutt told The News Minute that this unfortunate incident should make us reflect on the high levels of stress zoo animals experience especially due to visitors who only indulge in teasing animals at the Zoo.
"Are zoos in India for entertainment or education? That's what we need to dwell on," Bahar asks. "To my mind people visiting zoos should be punished if not obeying rules like to refrain from pelting animals. I have only heard reporters asking why was there no security guard there that's all," she adds.
Bahar also questioned the tendency to hashtag the incident, putting the onus of terror on the tiger. "What is wrong with our media houses? And this is the English newschannels- using #killertiger and #whitetigerterror to describe unfortunate incident at Delhi Zoo? Have these reporters ever been to the Zoo ? Do they know animals are housed under high stress levels and subjected to stone pelting and yelling every 5 minutes by visitors? Time for Zoo visiting audiences and media to reflect on their own behaviour than to go about blaming zoo authorities," she says.
Such 'tigerterror' mongering amounts to nothing constructive. Perhaps emphasizing #PlayByTheRules or #DoNotEnterEnclosures in zoos could send a better message.