From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The gunmen who terrorized Mumbai nearly two weeks ago now were well

armed, not just with weapons, but with communications technology and the know-how to use it.

It was, as Emily Wax observed in the Washington Post, terrorism in the digital age,

planned with Google Earth Maps, navigated with GPS equipment, and coordinated with BlackBerry's

voiceover Internet protocol, and a succession of cell phones. Once the attacks were underway,

others rushed in to cover the story with their own blackberries

and cell phones, along with the video cameras of several global news channels and dozens

of Indian ones. Let's start there. India's local stations were criticized for reporting perhaps

too well on the movements of government commandos, so much so that local authorities shut them down for 45 minutes early in the attacks.

Arnab Giswami is the chief editor of India's largest national news station times now.

He says the public breathed in the coverage like air, and when it was cut, the response was massive. Massive. I was inundated

with phone calls. Every single phone was ringing. People were watching us so closely that if we were

off for five seconds, they would react. Because cable and satellite television is largely the only

form of receiving information at a time like this.

Very few people in India in a live situation actually go to the internet to find out what's

happening. So you actually cut off the main source of information. But I must appreciate the

role of the government in Delhi, which the moment we brought it to their notice, they immediately

acted, sent a message to the police, and

made sure that we were up within 15 minutes of the official complaint going up.

But weren't you concerned that, in fact, the terrorists were monitoring those broadcasts?

I spoke live on the course of my coverage to several foreign nationals who were in fact

...