Newslaundry Podcast

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Shoaib Daniyal, associate editor at Scroll. The panel starts with a discussion on Cyclone Amphan and the resultant devastation in West Bengal. Shoaib says: “This was so fearsome that it came into Kolkata also, which is a good 100 km from the sea...It was a pretty scary sight that day and, of course, the city then went through terrible problems for the next few days.” He adds that casualty numbers are relatively low, despite the cyclone’s severity, “because of basic precautions. Just putting people in a pakka house — that very simple act saves lives.”The panel also discusses the media coverage of Amphan. Manisha acknowledges that there are possible constraints for media organisations. However, channels like Zee Bangla and News18 Bangla still managed to cover the cyclone, but Zee and News18’s Hindi counterparts did not, “despite having this great resource of reporters being on the ground for the Beng