New Delhi: The horrific crash of Air India flight AI171 has jolted the entire world. Flying from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, the flight plummeted to the ground just seconds after takeoff.
Amidst this deeply disturbing accident, a saddening reality about the Indian media space and journalistic ethics was brought to light by Air India.
Air India, on its official X handle, issued a public plea urging media personnel to refrain from calling the emergency helpline number set up for the families of passengers affected by the recent flight crash.
The carrier was compelled to take to social media after several journalists reportedly began dialling the number, meant solely for anxious relatives seeking information, hoping to fish out exclusive details.
In an X post shared by the official handle of Air India, the conglomerate confirmed the crash and announced the setting up of the passenger hotline number. However, at the end of the tweet, there was a “Note to Editors” that revealed an extremely sad state of affairs in the Indian media space.
The post read, “Air India requests media persons not to call the dedicated passenger hotline number.”
It turns out that the post was not enough for some journalists to correct their ways. Air India again shared the passenger hotline numbers for within and outside India, and reiterated its request to media persons.
Senior journalists weighed in on the matter. Veteran journalist Shekhar Iyer, commenting on the matter, said, “That ‘Note to Editors’ at the end is such a damning indictment of what our profession has become.”
At this intersection of grief and newsroom competition, Niraj Sharma, Editor-in-Chief, BMI Group, pointed to a deeper professional dilemma.
“The media fraternity has maintained for long that it shows what the audience watches. It is largely true that some pieces of content, which may be bad in taste for some, are consumed by a large audience base. Today, traditional media houses are competing with several social media channels that have no boundaries whatsoever.”
“In such a scenario, the traditional media are facing a huge professional dilemma. If it ignores what audiences are consuming on social media, it will lose them. At the same time, if the traditional media follows social media channels, the older generation will give sermons. In the meantime, advertisers will continue to increase their spending on social media to tap the young audience,” Sharma added.
In the aftermath of such incidents, the media often becomes a punching bag, criticised for both doing too much and not doing enough.
Sharma observed, “After every big breaking incident, the media becomes the punching bag for everyone after they have served with the news. The same audience comes back to analyse the drawbacks of the coverage. Sometimes, the criticism draws a red line, but it appears as sermons on many occasions.”
Adding to the chorus of callousness are some media channels that are repeatedly playing the unfortunate crash footage ever since this incident came to light.
Highlighting the relentless and insensitive coverage by some news channels, senior RSS functionary and author Ratan Sharda wrote, “May I humbly suggest to all the TV channels to stop showing the Air India plane crash video in loop. It is disturbing & depressing for the impacted families & all of us.”
Sharda also made a public request to the Prime Minister’s Office, appealing for restraint on news channels that are repeatedly playing out the horrifying clip.
Reacting to Sharda’s observations, Sharma said, “The traditional media has to find the right balance between the two, and it could be achieved with the application of empathy and the right thinking brain at every level of content creation. Showing restraint is being mindful. If you earn views or TRPs with disrepute, such a trade-off is never productive. Everyone wants to watch more and more videos, however disturbing they may be, in a breaking scenario. But stretching them may be avoided.”
The aircraft, while crashing, slammed into a doctors’ hostel at BJ Medical College, causing extensive damage and raising concerns about additional casualties on the ground. Visuals circulating online showed thick black smoke rising from the crash site, with charred wreckage scattered across the area.
/bmi/media/agency_attachments/KAKPsR4kHI0ik7widvjr.png)
/bmi/media/media_files/2025/06/03/cxJjw4GRa3RB9ISzMpal.jpg)
/bmi/media/member_avatars/2024/12/04/2024-12-04t050854554z-lalit-kumar.jpg )
Follow Us/bmi/media/media_files/2025/06/13/AclhtgTj95TYEhxgR5km.jpg)