Yeh Woh
News on Sunday
If there is one thing the entire mass media of Pakistan,
and indeed all Pakistanis with an opinion or two agree on, it is the need to
inculcate some basic professional ethics into the news media industry. Every
single newspaper, every television channel and nearly every anchor person and
columnist has a stated position which acknowledges gross violations of ethics
on a daily basis, and urges on the reform process.
We have done it for so long that we are getting rather good
at it. We boldly accept we work in an unethical environment, thereby implying
that we could be ethical professionals only if the environment was right. This
opens up media people to plenty of support and encouragement from well meaning
people in the world who believe there is no wrong that can not be righted in a
five-day training workshop.
Every day somewhere in the country, a group of journalists
is taught ethics of reporting on violence, or labour issues, or working women,
or elections, or acid crimes … you think of a subject, a theme, and a donor
promptly finds money to train or sensitise limited number of media persons in
treating that subject professionally. International financial
institutions have the money to train business reporters, INGOs are only
interested in the humanitarian aspect of reporting, a UN agency can spend a
fortune getting us a code of ethics for portraying children, and a country on
the reverse side of the globe can fund a campaign to encourage reporting on our
environmental issues.
Have the sundry admissions of culpability by all concerned,
training of journalists, and five-star consultations with senior editors and
owners, made our output any more ethical? Is it possible for an outsider to
train part of a local industry, on the application of ethics to one part of the
business only, and get wholesome results? Can an industry reform itself by
simply shouting for help without putting in any effort, time, and money? And
finally, having brought a thirsty horse to water, how do you make it drink?
These are not rhetorical questions, and their purpose is not
to belittle the efforts of reformers – all of whom are foreigners or those
relying on foreign funding. The idea is to consider the possibility that the
horse is only pretending to be thirsty and that is why it won’t drink clean,
fresh water. Or that it prefers muddy water that its digestive system is used
to.
Ask any group of front line journalists – reporters,
subeditors and camera persons – and they’ll tell you their editors are
interested in quantity not quality. That they will never allow them the time,
space, and material resources to work on a story professionally and ethically.
And therefore the only advantage of sitting through a training is, getting a
break from work.
At a recently held discussion, senior journalists including
well known anchorpersons and working and former editors, agreed that the
unethical influence in the news media is entirely the doing of media owners who
are obsessed with ratings and breaking news.
Owners of mainstream media are loath to being questioned,
but I’ve had the opportunity to ask a group of local media owners in Peshawer
what or who stops them from running their business with due regard for the
principles and ethics of journalism, and their unanimous reply was: the
intelligence agencies.
So, where to begin the reform process then? From
intelligence agencies? Or coax media practitioners at every level to know and
be responsible for upholding professional ethics within our own spheres, and put
in place a media watchdog with real teeth to ensure journalists are not
penalised by owners for being loyal to their profession?
The owner is in the business of making money, or getting
political patronage, or both, but they are not journalists. They hire a
professional editor who exercises executive authority in the day to day running
of news operation. Whatever little is ethical in the output then, is credited
to the editor, and all the unethical stuff is thrown at the door of the owner,
simply because no one dares knock on that door.
If the editor/director is not part of the solution, they are
part of the problem. And a big part of a big problem. If the only way foreign
donors know of reforming a pesky media is training, then let the senior most
editors and newsroom heads be the first to go through it. They need it more
than the fresh recruits who simply adapt to the culture created by senior
editors.
