Firemen rescuing guests from the burning upper floors were bringing them to the square in front of the Taj, where the media were gathering to cover the unfolding siege. In the midst of this, a journalist from NewsX, one of India's many new round-the-clock cable channels, was shoved by a hotel staffer, who was helping the guests. With adrenaline already high and gunshots in the building behind them, the pushes turned into a brawl between hotel staff and the media.

The ugly incident outraged many onlookers. Yet it was just one of many similar episodes that have taken place as the kind of sensationalist live television news coverage so common elsewhere in the world sweeps through Indian television.

At the Oberoi, the other luxury hotel besieged by terrorists, camera crews mobbed shocked survivors as they stepped from the building. People who only moments earlier had thought they were going to die had to field questions such as: “How do you feel?” Anguished relatives demanded to know why the police had not cordoned the area off.