I was astonished when The Tribune reported that Iran has tested surface to sea missile known as Silkworm, which has a speed of 290 kilometers per second and with a range of 110 kilometers. Only if i was not in my conscious, i would had considered it as a big news when compared to Russia's "super weapon", which is capable of both flying along ballistic trajectory at hyper-sonic speed(more than 5 times the speed of sound) and can also change both altitude and direction of its flight in the atmosphere, which analysts believe can overcome any future missile defense systems. What i'm saying is, here we have a missile developed by Iran which can reach its target in a blink of an eye, is it not amazing!?. Accepted, most of the Indian defense journalists have no clue in defense related matters as Kaushik Kapisthalam notes:
The report claimed, for instance, that the Indian Navy had to buy Israeli Barak missiles, because the naval version of the Prithvi missile was delayed. That is funny because the Barak is a Surface-to-Air missile while the Prithvi is a Surface-to-Surface missile. This was unlikely to be a one-off mistake because the report went on to call the Nag anti-tank missile a Surface to Air missile as well.
When i checked other Indian news sources (and few other foreign sources too), who had obtained Iran's missile testing news item from "Associated Press", all most all of them repeated same mistake blindly. As Kaushik states:
it is still a shame that much of the defense reporting in India is left to people who just reproduce what their 'sources' tell them, without doing any fact-checking. That their 'sources' could have an axe to grind seems to be lost with these people. And very rarely do these negative reports contain quotes from those who have an opposite point of view.
and in this case our journo/editor had proved that they don't even use their common sense before reproducing news item from their source!.
4 comments:
Forget reporting on defence... even normal news reporting is pathetic.Did u know about the sepia mutiny spoof that that was reported as a news
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001528.html
Yes, i had read that one. Other thing is our media looks towards west for inspiration and style of reporting is much similar to western media, not that it is bad but there is no innovation and originality. They just follow western trends.
290 kilometers per second missile Silkworm is very amazing. India is bigger than Iran, but we are buyying the wepons from other countries. we should also research new method for weapons and missiles.
No Jeevan, Actually silkworm's speed is 290km per hour, AP has misprinted and all other news media copied the same without checking. We have our own missile program which is more evolved than that of Iran's and we are collaborating in area of defense development with other nations. But still we are long way from achieving self sufficiency and need to put lot of effort.
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