RoundUp: Firing At New Delhi Airport
By Kamla Bhatt • Dec 4th, 2008Category: India, New Delhi
Reports are streaming in that there was firing at
What is clear is that there was firing at the New Delhi international airport at around 1 am and that a hunt is on for Toyota Qualis with a Haryana airport according to NDTV. What is not unclear is if people died. NDTV is reporting that there was no loss of life, but initial reports suggested otherwise and that is where a lot of initial confusion stemmed from on Twitter and other news sites.
What led to the initial confusion is that the first report from BBC which suggested that there were 6 people shot. That news got picked by other news sites.
There is also confusion in the number of people of people involved in the incident. How many people were there in that Qualis that sped away from the airport after the shots were fired? Initial NDTV reports from an eyewitness account that there were 3 people in that Qualis. But, Udayan Banerjee, head of
The hunt is currently on for a white Qualis that sped away from the airport. Apparently, no empty shells or damage has been found at the airport.
Here are a couple of early news reports:
Initial BBC report that has been revised and AP report.
Sydney Morning Herald sums up the unfolding of events at
Just over a day ago various Indian airports including the one at
What is of concern is how quickly news developed and spread in a viral fashion in the online world. We need to be careful on how we interpret and share information and news. It was interesting to see how a couple of folks quickly tried to correct the initial news on Twitter when news about New Delhi started streaming in. That was not the case in the Mumbai event, where lot of people jumped in and after a while it became unclear what was the real news, and what were Retweets etc. We need to be careful when we point fingers at mainstream media and say they are at fault. We have all become active participants in this news gathering effort. It is no longer a one-way street, but is instead an interactive two-way street and what that means is that we too have roles and responsibilities . We have a responsibility on how we interpret and share news and information. We cannot have one standard for mainstream media and another one for us.
[...] Bhatt analyzes the fresh reports of firing at New Delhi’s International Airport on the early hours of December [...]
I was at the airport at the time it happened. It was really scary and as I had never experienced a situation like that, I really thought we were in real danger. After we heard the gunshots everyone started running over the terminal and we had to hide under chairs, benches and tables. While we were lying on the floor, we heard more sounds that were very similar to gunshots and the policemen inside the building were asking us to remain on the floor.
After 10 minutes or so, everyone was requested to enter the fingers that lead the passengers to the airplanes. We stayed there for another 10 minutes and there we were asked to sit on the floor, silently and they turned off the lights. No one knew what was happening, but, given their reaction I really doubt to say that nothing happened in fact.
Right after they said we could go back to the terminal, a policeman said: “The shooting was outside the terminal, not inside”, a real sign that something serious took place there.
…but ‘our’ news/tweets comes from mainstream media. if they report something incorrectly, we spread the same. why would it be wrong to blame them then?