The best part of being a trainer is, one’s own learning is assured.
The group of 14 trainees gathered at a country club outside Karachi proper last week, was special in that it was made up of mainstream journalists from the heart of conflict constituency – Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas – and they were selected by the hosts on the basis of their capability and desire to learn rather than sent by a friendly boss on an out-of-town freebie. It was a group of journalists unlike any other I’ve come across, and the perspective they brought with them was equally unique.
Those from FATA have no access to cable or dish television, and in many parts the newspaper is delivered a day late. In Waziristan the military routinely imposes curfew for two days a week which means no newspaper on those days. All journalism related activity is illegal therefore no local publication or independent radio station exists, and journalists working for media based in the settled areas are allowed to operate at the pleasure of local military commanders.
Those in Baluchistan and KPK work under extremely stressful conditions and insensitive, often grossly ignorant editors and owners who routinely push their reporters and photo journalists into situations where they have to decide between putting their life and well being at risk or using tactics that are unprofessional, unethical and against public interest.
They are all hounded by both the military and armed militants over reports perceived as unfavourable, several had received death threats or had been kidnapped, all are underpaid in comparison with their colleagues in Lahore and Karachi, none received any training for working in hostile environment, and only one was issued with protective gear. None in the group had access to first-aid kit, company paid life insurance, or facility to relocate on company expense when under threat.
And these men and women are the eyes and ears we rely on for news from the battle front! They are not really doing a job; it’s more like a mission.
I’m not sure if the trainers were able to help these journalists cope with working conditions they, the trainers had never experienced, but the trainees were visibly relaxed and happy to be away from the every day dangers and anxieties of their working life … until the last day when three of them had their airport bound taxi stopped on Shara e Faisal in broad day light and guns pointed at them while they emptied their wallets and handed their mobile phones to young robbers who were clearly not Taliban or soldiers.
Friday 14 October 2011
Sunday 2 October 2011
What a disaster!
My weekly column for The News on Sunday:
Everyone in Pakistan has by now learnt to respond to humanitarian crises, except for TV journalists and editors.
In the last six years alone, we have faced three major natural disasters that affected millions of people each; and several smaller scale calamities that hit communities: A passenger airliner crash, dozens of terrorist attacks on crowded public places, mass murder of pilgrims and at religious gatherings, a town burned down for having the wrong faith, a metropolis terrorised by armed criminals, widespread epidemics, a bus full of school children falling off a mountain road … more than enough experience of dealing with emergencies, and their fallout.
Majority of us have learnt from our mistakes. The affected people are managing to bury their dead and rebuilding their lives without waiting for government’s help. The government officials have learnt to respond quickly with a help-line number, never mind no one ever attends, or even makes those calls, except for cynics who dial just to confirm there’s no one at the other end. The elected leaders who used to hover above devastated land in their helicopters now wade through flood waters or stumble over debris for the benefit of TV cameras. Fellow citizens gather aid supplies and deliver in truckloads. And NGOs reach the remotest parts, though only to feed and shelter a tiny fraction of the needy, and hold workshops for local journalists emphasising that what’s most needed in an emergency situation, even more than food and shelter, is information. Information saves lives and provides relief.
But those charged with providing information on a mass scale choose to remain uninformed. To be fair, the print medium is doing a good job of keeping the rest of the country informed of what’s going on in the calamity-hit areas. Only, newspapers have hardly a readership to speak of. Reading is not one of our national traits, be it a publication, instruction manual, or a traffic sign. FM radio is not very effective either because of its limited range and budgets. Hence the popularity of television, and the enhanced responsibility that comes with it.
In an ironic but true reflection of their audiences, the TV journalists hate reading and learning as much. For them, a disaster is a routine story like sighting of Ramzan moon or arrest of Indian fishermen for crossing into Pakistani waters. No need to gather information; take an old script, change the date and names and you have a brand new story. If it’s flooding, the standard line is: ‘The place is inundated and the residents are facing severe hardships’. Really? They are not enjoying the free swimming pool facility right at their doorstep? If it’s three dozen Faisalabad families mourning the death of their sons who left for sightseeing and returned in coffins, the script is: ‘These families are devastated, the women are wailing …’ And what would you rather have them do? Sing a sad song?
It’s not just unprofessional, it’s pathetic and painful to watch. The morning after — a good 12-14 hours after the Kallar Kahar accident — there was little or no information about the survivors; nothing on where to look for the injured; no eye-witness account; no interviews with school, police, or local government officials. When bits of information did arrive, they did more harm by, for instance, giving only first names of the confirmed dead. Even a person of below average intelligence would expect more than one ‘Amjad’ or ‘Saleem’ or some such common name in a group of more than a 100. But not our TV editor watching over the ticker.
Every channel had a somber-faced reporter standing in front of a dead body or a tamashbeen crowd, saying utter nonsense about his surroundings that were visible to everyone on their screen anyway. Every cameraman was trying to take a close-up of the dead body or the wailing mother or sister … for God’s sake, can’t people even die with dignity and grieve in private? This is criminal behaviour that can only exist in a society in which any joker with a microphone or camera in hand is allowed into a household in mourning.
The jokers in the fields of Sindh, shoving microphones into miserable people’s faces with the question: ‘what are your problems?’, getting and accepting the only possible answer ‘we got nothing in aid’, and standing in ankle-deep water for their piece-to-camera, were bad enough. Do we have to take the freak show inside private homes?
---------------
The Kallar Kahar accident happened on Monday evening, this piece was filed on Wednesday, and the Thursday Dawn 'broke' the news that the bus never fell in a ravine, it overturned on the road. This bit of information took TWO DAYS to come out, not because the accident took place in a remote area - it happened ON THE MOTORWAY - but because none of the reporters in Faisalabad bothered to visit the site or even ask the right questions of traffic police officials. This must be the most shameful coverage of an emergency in Pakistani media ... as yet.
Everyone in Pakistan has by now learnt to respond to humanitarian crises, except for TV journalists and editors.
In the last six years alone, we have faced three major natural disasters that affected millions of people each; and several smaller scale calamities that hit communities: A passenger airliner crash, dozens of terrorist attacks on crowded public places, mass murder of pilgrims and at religious gatherings, a town burned down for having the wrong faith, a metropolis terrorised by armed criminals, widespread epidemics, a bus full of school children falling off a mountain road … more than enough experience of dealing with emergencies, and their fallout.
Majority of us have learnt from our mistakes. The affected people are managing to bury their dead and rebuilding their lives without waiting for government’s help. The government officials have learnt to respond quickly with a help-line number, never mind no one ever attends, or even makes those calls, except for cynics who dial just to confirm there’s no one at the other end. The elected leaders who used to hover above devastated land in their helicopters now wade through flood waters or stumble over debris for the benefit of TV cameras. Fellow citizens gather aid supplies and deliver in truckloads. And NGOs reach the remotest parts, though only to feed and shelter a tiny fraction of the needy, and hold workshops for local journalists emphasising that what’s most needed in an emergency situation, even more than food and shelter, is information. Information saves lives and provides relief.
But those charged with providing information on a mass scale choose to remain uninformed. To be fair, the print medium is doing a good job of keeping the rest of the country informed of what’s going on in the calamity-hit areas. Only, newspapers have hardly a readership to speak of. Reading is not one of our national traits, be it a publication, instruction manual, or a traffic sign. FM radio is not very effective either because of its limited range and budgets. Hence the popularity of television, and the enhanced responsibility that comes with it.
In an ironic but true reflection of their audiences, the TV journalists hate reading and learning as much. For them, a disaster is a routine story like sighting of Ramzan moon or arrest of Indian fishermen for crossing into Pakistani waters. No need to gather information; take an old script, change the date and names and you have a brand new story. If it’s flooding, the standard line is: ‘The place is inundated and the residents are facing severe hardships’. Really? They are not enjoying the free swimming pool facility right at their doorstep? If it’s three dozen Faisalabad families mourning the death of their sons who left for sightseeing and returned in coffins, the script is: ‘These families are devastated, the women are wailing …’ And what would you rather have them do? Sing a sad song?
It’s not just unprofessional, it’s pathetic and painful to watch. The morning after — a good 12-14 hours after the Kallar Kahar accident — there was little or no information about the survivors; nothing on where to look for the injured; no eye-witness account; no interviews with school, police, or local government officials. When bits of information did arrive, they did more harm by, for instance, giving only first names of the confirmed dead. Even a person of below average intelligence would expect more than one ‘Amjad’ or ‘Saleem’ or some such common name in a group of more than a 100. But not our TV editor watching over the ticker.
Every channel had a somber-faced reporter standing in front of a dead body or a tamashbeen crowd, saying utter nonsense about his surroundings that were visible to everyone on their screen anyway. Every cameraman was trying to take a close-up of the dead body or the wailing mother or sister … for God’s sake, can’t people even die with dignity and grieve in private? This is criminal behaviour that can only exist in a society in which any joker with a microphone or camera in hand is allowed into a household in mourning.
The jokers in the fields of Sindh, shoving microphones into miserable people’s faces with the question: ‘what are your problems?’, getting and accepting the only possible answer ‘we got nothing in aid’, and standing in ankle-deep water for their piece-to-camera, were bad enough. Do we have to take the freak show inside private homes?
---------------
The Kallar Kahar accident happened on Monday evening, this piece was filed on Wednesday, and the Thursday Dawn 'broke' the news that the bus never fell in a ravine, it overturned on the road. This bit of information took TWO DAYS to come out, not because the accident took place in a remote area - it happened ON THE MOTORWAY - but because none of the reporters in Faisalabad bothered to visit the site or even ask the right questions of traffic police officials. This must be the most shameful coverage of an emergency in Pakistani media ... as yet.
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