It's your fault

Pakistani media is trashy because people – that would be consumers of media, or simply put, you – demand and happily receive trash. That was the only explanation offered at an event that measured atmospheric pressure of the media environment and found it low enough to predict that stormy weather is only getting worse.
The Asian Media Barometer first conducted home-grown analysis of the media landscape in Pakistan and India in 2009, in which India scored 2.4 and Pakistan a slightly better 2.5 out of a maximum score of 5. The 2012 Barometer found Pakistan sliding down to 2.4. Beating India by one decimal point was the source of pride then, and being where India was three years ago, is the saving grace now. But is it?
Three of the four sectors analysed in the report, show a marked decline in both practice and theory of basic media principles and ethics. This does not, however, reflect in the overall score because the ‘freedom of expression’ sector received a more than generous acknowledgment by panelists who number 11 (or 12, depending on what page of the report you are on) and are drawn from within national media and civil society.
A majority of them are so enamoured of the Zardari brand of democracy that they find it impossible to consider that unreasonable and restrictive provisions in law and Constitution, remain so during the ‘return of democracy’ period. In response to the statement: ‘There are no laws or parts of laws restricting freedom of expression such as excessive official secrets or libel acts, or laws that unreasonably interfere with the responsibilities of media,’ only four panelists voted 1 (country does not meet indicator) while two voted 5 (country meets all aspects of the indicator) and the rest fell in between. This, in the face of a list of 11 pieces of legislation – the oldest from 1885 and the latest from 2009 – the panelists were provided to debate over. I’d give anything to watch a recording of that debate just to see how a dozen experts discuss tainted laws, agree that they are unfair and against the spirit of free expression, and yet reach an above average score of 2.6 in aggregate.
The statements put to vote are, in some cases, quite vague or outlandish, like: ‘Websites and blogs are not required to register with or obtain permission from state authorities’ (it received a unanimous maximum score of 5), and: ‘The advertisement market is large enough to support a diversity of media outlets’. The only purpose they seem to serve is giving some easy points to a country in need of easy points.
And the tradition of anonymous voting let loose the ghost panelists who voted in a manner none of them would own up publicly. For instance:
‘Government makes every effort to honour regional and international instruments on freedom of expression and freedom of the media,’ received only one vote for ‘country does not meet indicator’ while all the rest answered between ‘only a few’ and ‘most’ aspects met. This, in a country where a democratically elected military president bans all electronic media by simply passing an order; a country where a democratically elected civilian government uses public service broadcasting for propaganda, and threatens public servants with disciplinary action if they are found to provide information to media; and a country which (together with India and Brazil) has recently opposed the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, despite being one of the most dangerous countries for journalists.
‘The state does not seek to block or filter internet content unless laws provide for restrictions that serve a legitimate interest and are necessary in a democratic society’ – 10 panelists found the statement true to some or the other extent but one found it perfectly applicable to Pakistan. The current and previous governments have routinely filtered internet access and explicitly blocked social network web sites such as Facebook and Youtube.
‘Journalists and editors do not practice self-censorship’ – The journalists of Fata and Balochistan fear militants, in Karachi they fear MQM, and in Azad Kashmir and elsewhere, it is the sweeping powers of military and the street power of religious groups. For one reason or another, every Pakistani journalist and editor practices some degree of self-censorship, and that’s only in terms of fear of violence. Pressure from advertisers and political allies is another story. And yet, six of 11 panelists agreed with the statement somewhat. ‘Community broadcasting enjoys special promotion given its potential to broaden access by communities to the airwaves’ – six voted 1 while the rest five were split between 2 and 3, whereas the factual position is, community broadcasting does not exist in Pakistan.
‘Government does not use its power over the placement of advertisements as a means to interfere with editorial content’ – again 10 panelists found that the country does not meet the indicator, while two differed. And my favourite: ‘Owners of established mainstream private media do not interfere with editorial independence,’ One special (as in handicapped) panelist voted a lone 5 while the remaining 10 voted 1. This is not a difference of opinion; this is a difference of 180 degrees. The special panelist obviously knows nothing about media owners, or he is one.
Fahad Hussain made the brave attempt to rescue the media by means of the ‘mirror of society’ analogy – if every other section of the society is rotten how do you expect media to be any different? People get the media they deserve. And the moderator, Ghazi Salahuddin, concurred: ‘Pakistani media has also been subject to declining standards because of the educational and cultural shortcomings of society. Low literacy and high cost of newspapers have restricted circulation of print media. As for the broadcast media, the tendency to appeal to the lowest common denominator has increased exponentially,’ he writes in the summary of the report commissioned and published by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), a German non-profit organisation.
So there: It’s all your fault. And mine. The media in this country is the way it is because we are like that. But that’s not the only knowledge produced by putting German tax payer’s money to work in Pakistan. More importantly, we have learnt that there aren’t 11 people in a population of nearly 200 million who can agree on what is a fact and what isn’t.

Jay-walking journalism

Published as 'The perfect mediocrity of Pakistani journalism' by Dawn.com

Young men and women who aspire to be journalists in today’s Pakistan, do so for two reasons. One, they studied mass communication because they couldn’t make the merit for more structured disciplines at university, and have figured, honestly, they are not good enough at anything in particular. And two, they have an overwhelming urge to save and serve the world.

The former is a straight forward and understandable reason. You pick a newspaper or watch a television news bulletin, and you see mediocrity reigning supreme. Senior reporters can’t fit their five Ws and an H in a feature-length news report; those who do, more often than not get their facts wrong and their figures fudged; hardly anyone knows the language they report in or edit; and when they become seasoned enough, they either start wheeling dealing as media managers or take to writing and talking complete nonsense, with a lot more panache, authority, and freedom than they could muster as reporters.

Surely I can do better than these jokers, the young job seeker enthuses. Today’s ‘well known journalists’ took the same route, didn’t they? One day they were just a cute face or a sexy figure, or the son/daughter of a showbiz person, or a misfit civil servant, or rude and belligerent angry-old-man, or a smooth and slippery charlatan … and the next day they are presenting news, hosting a current affairs programme or analysing a complex event or situation. That makes me qualified too – I can talk the talk and walk the walk. In fact if I don’t stand a chance in journalism, I don’t stand a chance anywhere.

This line of thinking smacks of opportunism but is in fact as realistic as it gets. And the proof of its being real is in the fact that young people who don’t know any better do keep joining the circus, becoming the jokers, and in turn, attracting more wannabes to follow them. It’s the natural circle of life in Pakistani journalism. Those who are lucky and crafty enough, get a fat salary and fringe benefits that are restricted only by their own imagination, while the rest slog off on pittance, or no salary at all, waiting for their chance to strike gold.

The latter reason is more devious and therefore should be alarming for media consumers and media managers alike. Those who enter journalism to ‘reform’ the society in the image of this philosophy or that, are like the young lad who joins the army so that he can become a general, take over the government, and fix all the ills of his beloved homeland. They have the sincerity of purpose of a 16 years old, and an intelligence level to match. These juvenile do-gooders come in handy as fodder for various ideologies grazing the landscape of this nation.

There are right-wing ideologues who see God and Satan in every conflict, left-wing whiners who are always on the side of the oppressed but are never quite sure who the oppressed are, nationalists who insist on reinventing the wheel as a Pakistani invention for it to roll in Pakistan, and liberals who reject everything without putting forward anything new. These journalists too attract their own kind and form the other circle of journalistic life.

Between the intellectually challenged and ideologically motivated journalists – who together define the Pakistani brand of journalism – there exist a few meticulous reporters who write for people, write well, make fewer factual mistakes and are very cautious in their editorial judgment; brilliant copy editors who turn a rag tag compilation of information into a juicy story; creative photo journalists who tell a complicated story simply through the selection of their angle, and sharp editors who guide their teams into doing stories others can’t see. They are a part of every news media organisation but they are few and they remain faceless. Their names will not come up even once when you ask a thousand, or ten thousand newspaper readers and news TV viewers, who in their opinion are professionally competent journalists. And therefore no one aspires to be them.

Pakistani journalism, as unleashed by a military ruler, repackaged by semi literate media owners, and meekly accepted by senior editors, is no more about informing, educating and entertaining the audience. It’s all about acquiring and expanding a power base and selling a particular point of view, which incidentally, are the two defining traits of politicians as well. And it’s no coincidence. Media owners and senior editors have always been a part of partisan politics and senior journalists who speak and write non-stop on political developments have little or no understanding of the issues that really matter for all Pakistanis, clean drinking water for instance. Every senior journalist is by default a political analyst and the more ambitious of them do turn into full time politicians. Hussain Haqqani, Maleeha Lodhi, Mushahid Hussain, Ayaz Amir, Nafeesa Shah, Shafqat Mahmood … stand out in the present crop of journalists-turned-politicians.

So mixed up is journalism with politics, especially in the mind of old school vernacular journalists, that a senior, presidential award winning columnist recently counted his professional achievements in these words: ‘I was writing columns for (dailies) Shahab and Musawat. Bhutto sahib deputed me to the election campaign of PPP candidates in and around Lyalpur. I used to attend all the public meetings, and people from those days may remember that nature used me as a speaker (at election rallies) too’. Any student of journalism today will be stunned by the fact that the admission is made with pride, not shame. That’s how twisted things are.

Are they getting better? No chance, not at least in near future. Because there is no economic incentive for media owners to purge journalism of unprofessional and unethical practices. And not even the senior most editors have the capacity to train and mentor juniors, if they were asked to. The top layer of our contemporary journalists spent their working life, alternately accommodating and fighting the draconian provisions of censorship laws. And when this generation did get the freedom – ironically at the hands of a serving army general – they did not know what to do with freedom. They’d only fought for principles and ethics; they never got to practice them.

That confusion and inaction on part of senior editors at the turn of the millennium, spelled death for the powerful office of the editor – practically in electronic media and theoretically in print. It is this powerless, directionless editor who became the role model of my generation which is now passing on professional mediocrity to the next generation.

You still want to break into journalism? By all means. But do get your preferences right. If your motivation is one or both mentioned above, you know the drill. If you want to do for-people and ethical journalism, learn the ropes in a professional environment before sending your resume to a mainstream Pakistani media house, because you’ll get a job, a salary if you are lucky, but you won’t get any learning.

Dunya leaks

Malik Riaz’s marathon live interview on Dunya TV, and the subsequent leak of its off-air bits in which both hosts were shown to be chummy with a guest of questionable reputation they were pretending to grill on-air, was the best thing to have happened to Pakistani media. Well, almost.

The media performs the functions of both the mouth, and eyes-and-ears of its audiences. Here was a chance for the mouth to shut up for once and for the eyes and ears to take in the reality; to look at the image of news media as portrayed by the consumers of media; to contemplate and deconstruct the recent developments, beginning with the ‘whispering campaign’ about a grand plot against the judiciary and culminating in exposing media as a party in the plot; and collectively suggest, agree on, and implement corrective measures aimed at restoring media’s credibility.

Instead, the newspapers started throwing the blame on TV, particularly its talk-show hosts, and the television brayed in its defense like never before. Mehr Bukhari attempted the impossible by telling her audiences what they saw in the leaked clips was something that happens in talk-shows on a daily basis and was no big deal really; the real crime was stealing of private moments in the studio, and that is what should be condemned. Her co-host Mubashir Luqman was however suspended, apparently for throwing an on-air tantrum during what he believed was a commercial break.

Talat Hussain deciphered the jargon for his audience and explained, frame by frame, how Dunya hosts had trampled every principle and ethic in the book of journalism. He was of the view though, that the unprofessional conduct of a ‘handful’ of media personalities should not eclipse the honesty and professionalism of a vast majority of media practitioners. Hamid Mir did several programmes in which he demanded accountability of all senior journalists, while Nusrat Javed thundered his prediction that the government was going to use this incident to tighten the noose around news media’s neck and the assorted leaders of journalists’ bodies responded by rolling up their sleeves and vowing to fight back.

Here then is a media just as confused about itself as it is about everything else it takes up. The malaise is much deeper and widespread than the media’s ability or inclination to see and report it. The operating word is not ‘professional malpractice’ but plain old corruption. From a small town correspondent cum news agent, to the sub-editor, editor and owner, corruption is rampant in both print and electronic media, and in that respect Ms. Bukhari is more right than Mr. Hussain, though it makes for a lousy excuse for her own and others’ conduct.

And who is going to hold media to accountability when its own professional bodies have failed in their role as watchdog and have consistently opposed reforms from outside? But accountability was what everyone seemed to want for all of the six days before the prime minister was disqualified by the Supreme Court, and the news bulletins and talk-shows abruptly moved on to the next burning subject.

The leaks failed to bring a positive change, just like the Maya Khan episode, Punjab Assembly’s bill criticising a section of media, and coverage of Karachi carnage of May 2007, and Mumbai attacks failed before it, though all these incidents triggered just as heated a debate on media ethics as seen in the recent days.

Dunyaleaks was an incident comparable to the filming of FC soldiers wantonly killing a young man in a Karachi park. In popular perception killing of innocents at the hands of state functionaries is a daily occurrence, but the video gave the macabre practice a distinct face, a tag to remember by. If not for the two sets of video clips, the conduct of the guilty parties would still be subject of hearsay and unsubstantiated allegations.

All that Dunyaleaks achieved was bringing journalists closer to politicians. The latter have been ridiculed and riled up for their failures and corrupt practices for as long as the private TV channels have existed. It was now time for the politicians to smile and welcome media personalities into the club of the disgraced, and to suggest, tongue in cheek, why doesn’t TV run Indian songs to illustrate the journalists’ wrongdoings?

But the issue of media ethics is already soooo last week. It’s going to be business as usual, until the next revelation whenever it comes. And then we’ll start demanding media accountability all over again.

Teacher meets journalist

Yeh Woh
(The News on Sunday)

‘When a journalist slanders someone in mass media, what can the aggrieved person do?’ asks one of the only three women in a training workshop for some two dozen radio and print journalists.

It is a very unusual question for a workshop on professional ethics. Front line journalists in small town Pakistan are the least curious of the lot. They treat a discussion on ethics the same way they deal with Friday sermon: listen respectfully without hearing, much less questioning or retaining anything about upholding universal values and avoiding unethical conduct. And here’s a young journalist thinking about her audience? Impressive.

Seerat introduced herself as a freelance journalist and columnist for local newspapers but didn’t have anything to show. Then towards the end of the three-day event she privately reintroduced herself: ‘I am no journalist’. Now here’s an honest one, I thought. The rest of the group could but never did admit that they are journalists only because they are employed with a media organisation, otherwise they know nothing about their rights and duties as journalists, and the mythical ‘best practices’.

‘No, seriously, I mean I’ve never worked with media. I am a teacher by profession’. She is wearing a burqa, complete with a veil over her face, showing only her eyes, and there’s no hint of a joke there. Okay ... nice meeting you Seerat the teacher, what brings you here? ‘I wanted to meet journalists and see for myself what kind of people they are’. Hmmm, not to get too personal, but are your parents about to marry you off with a journalist? Or maybe it’s a silly question, let me rephrase it: why?

The answer to this one-word query elicits an hour and a half of explanation.

As head teacher, she sacked a couple of female teachers she found below par. The women ganged up against her and threatened to ruin her life through local media. ‘I didn’t take them seriously. I mean media only says what’s true, right? So why should I worry when I’ve done everything according to rules’. Ah the innocence, the small town innocence of a university graduate. What helped her grow up and learn the reality was an identical piece in two local papers a few days later, displayed across the front page. ‘The head teacher is corrupt,’ announced the headline, with more sensational disclosures in the strap line: ‘teachers say she is mentally ill and tortures students and staff alike’.

Her eyes water a little around the outer corners: ‘Sir do I look like I am mentally ill?’ I try to make out her facial expressions behind the thin veil, failing which I look straight at the scar between her eyebrows and shake my head in sympathy.

‘You are teaching them ethics, so tell me what can I do against unethical reporting that’s tarnishing my image, bringing bad name to my family, and stressing me out even after I quit that job?’ Nothing, I replied with emphasis on the first syllable to denote absolute finality. ‘Nothing?’ she challenged me. ‘Well, a lawyer friend suggested that I should get the two newspapers to retract the offending stories and publish an apology’.

And did you? ‘Yes, I went to one editor, he told me not to teach him how to be a journalist. And after I left his office he called up the other party and received money from them for not entertaining my point of view. Then I went to the other editor but this time I had a few people call him before hand. He agreed the story against me was one-sided but instead of an apology he offered to publish a piece written by me. I gave him two and half pages of my side of the story, but this is all they used,’ she thrusts a folded newspaper towards me. The story is about three column inches and makes no sense, but the headline and strap lines are definitely positive: ‘The head teacher refutes corruption charges – says she is not mentally ill’.

So that proves it you are alright, I found something to say when I finished reading the story. The tear drop in the corner of her eye grew bigger, and rolled down gingerly, mixing with the kohl line and leaving a streak of grey that quickly disappeared in the black veil. ‘I didn’t write this line, they added it on their own,’ she said weakly, not sure if this too is unethical journalism.

Making the horse drink

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.

What to believe?

Hundreds of reporters and camera people have worked overtime for two days to gather information about the Bhoja Airline’s flight from Karachi that crashed near Islamabad on Friday evening, a couple of minutes before it was to land, killing all 127 people on board. Dozens of editors have pored over the information before it is presented to us, to make sure it is factual and corroborated by other available data and expertise. Thanks to the efforts of all these journalists, here is what we do know:

The incident took place in Hussainabad; it was actually Kural Chowk; the plane crashed near Chaklala; the crash site was 10 km from Islamabad airport; it was 15 km from the airport.

The plane landed hard on the ground, ballooned up, went through the trees and came down on a roof top; the plane blew up in air and the debris came raining down; it caught fire in the air but exploded on the ground; there was a mayday call seconds before landing; the pilot did not communicate any problem.

The cause of the accident is weather-related; the plane was struck by lightening; there’s frequent gunfire in the area and the plane may have been hit by a bullet; the plane was not air-worthy; the captain was new in the job and may have mishandled; the airline is a cheap operation that prefers to put hundreds of lives in danger rather than taking a detour and using up extra fuel; the cause of accident may not be known until a year.

According to Sunday papers the remains of all 127 dead bodies have been found (Express); search for 11 bodies still continues (several); 118 bodies have been identified and 116 handed over (The News); 117 handed over (Jang); 116 bodies recovered of which 108 have been identified and handed over (Dawn); 116 bodies identified and handed over (Express Tribune).

The doomed Boeing 737 aircraft was 27-28 years old (Dawn quoting FIR); the plane was 40 years old (Express Tribune editorial).

Bhoja Airline was licensed by the government of Nawaz Sharif and therefore Noon League is responsible for the tragedy; the airline operations were suspended during the Musharraf government and remained so till last month when the present government allowed it to resume operation, and therefore the responsibility for the crash lies with Gillani government.

 And the sickest bit: A relative of Air Blue victims two years ago, advising the relatives of Bhoja victims not to bury their dead before confirming through DNA tests that the remains given to them are indeed those of their loved ones. ‘When I went to Pims hospital to collect the remains, I was told to take any one I like,’ the man said on a TV channel.

Yeh Radio Pakistan hai

Yeh Woh
News on Sunday, March 25, 2012
 

It is ironical that people in Pakistan  have more trust in and loyalty towards foreign state broadcasters than their own state radio. And responding with double irony, the government wishes to change public perceptions, not by changing the way the PBC aka Radio Pakistan operates, but by slapping additional tax on the public.

 Public service broadcasting is a noble pursuit because it aims at informing, educating and entertaining the public at the expense of the tax payer and without being encumbered by the demands of commercialism. It’s not unusual for state broadcasters to disseminate propaganda in times of war or strife – BBC did it during WW II and during Falklands war and  Voice of America does it routinely as a matter of stated policy – but by and large it is an institution of value to the common people and needs to be preserved, kept modernised, and taken pride in.

 Born as Radio Pakistan  and renamed Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation in 1973, the broadcaster has always been owned and operated by the government. Its management board is headed by secretary information and broadcasting, and consists of members drawn from ministries of foreign affairs, finance, and interior, as well as heads of PTV and ISPR, the military’s mouthpiece. The chief executive is the director general who along with four ‘eminent persons’ as board members, is appointed at the discretion of federal government.

 The very constitution of the board makes it a tool in the hands of governments, both the military and civilian variety. And given its penetration – it’s the largest network of AM and FM radio in the country – and a subservient philosophy towards treating facts, history and music to please the rulers, it is a very powerful tool. The tradition and legacy of Radio Pakistan  (as indeed it is of PTV)is unashamedly towing the line of whatever government happens to be in power, and packaging it as patriotism. In fact everything it does, it does for the love of Pakistan  and its people, and yet it serves only the rulers.

 Along the way, it does some humanitarian information project, keeps alive some regional languages, and occasionally nurtures musical talent. But overall it only does disservice to public by misinforming and miseducating it. It has always done so, has always been thrown scraps at by the government, and has thrived. What has changed now that it is reaching into our pockets to survive?

 The case was built at a recent public concert in Islamabad, hosted by the DG. The evening’s host, Shuja’at Hashmi – one of those aging actors who sound senile whatever they say just because of their full head of jet black hair, in this case a wig – listed a number of grievances Radio Pakistan has, which all added up to an admission that the organisation needs help. What’s outrageous is what he proclaims next:that it’s you and me who are going to provide the help. Excuse me? What have I done?

You and me were represented at that pre-concert campaign-to-save-Radio Pakistan, by Senator Afrasiab Khattak and Babar Awan, two politicians cum lawyers who have no business with broadcasting, or if they have they didn’t mention it. What Mr. Awan confidently promised was that he’ll personally take it up with the finance minister. Excuse me? In what capacity? And if you  lobby in favour of the so-called Radio Tax, who are you representing? You are not even a senator.

It’s just ‘two rupees’ Hashmi kept reminding the audience, alternately employing comic and emotional tones – both of which sound equally tragic. I wish I lived in a society where someone would stand up and politely tell Mr. Hashmi that it’s not about two rupees. It’s a negation of the social contract we Pakistanis have with the state: you don’t work for us, we don’t pay you taxes. And here, an organization running on my money, working for the state, wants to tax me?

 ‘The average daily wage of a contract employee is, and get this … three … hundred … rupees,’ Mr. Hashmi goes dramatic. Yes, it’s sadly true. And it’s also true that when crunch comes, this employee’s salary is delayed for months, but never with the executives drawing six digit salaries. What’s also true is a majority of them will always remain contract employees because there are already three people hired on regular terms to do the job that eventually gets done by a contract employee.

Gutter ki Dunya

On January 9, three young women were killed and several injured in a stampede at Alhamra Cultural Complex, Lahore, where Atif Aslam performed to a hall overcrowded with female students of Punjab Group of Colleges, run by Mian Amir Mehmood, who also owns Dunya TV.

The families of two of the deceased women – Maheen Naseem and Farah Nawaz – addressed media on Tuesday 7^th February, at Lahore Press Club, to demand a judicial inquiry into the incident to ‘punish the culprits and recommend measures to avoid such tragedies in future’. Maheen’s father, Naseem Abbas who is a veteran stage and TV actor, lamented that the chief minister had ‘as usual ordered an inquiry and then forgot all about it’, and that the news media had deliberately suppressed the story to spare the organizers – the college management – because of their links with Mian Amir Mehmood and Dunya TV.

As if to validate Mr. Abbas’ allegations, none of the mainstream TV news channels reported the news conference. Today’s newspapers do carry the story but Dawn only identifies the college, The News has no names at all, and neither does the two-inch single column report in daily Express. ‘Influential owner of a private TV channel’ is the nearest any newspaper has come to identifying Mr. Mehmood and Dunya. It was the same, when the story broke – no names, not even the colleges' the students came from, and no follow ups after the initial report. Even the local channel C42 that doesn’t even let an overflowing gutter in the city go unreported, chose to stay quiet on this incident. The ‘conspiracy of silence’ Mr. Abbas sought the help of public representatives, parents and student bodies to end, continues shamelessly.

The conduct of Dunya TV over yesterday’s news conference is particularly shocking, even for a media as brazen in its flouting of professional ethics as the Pakistani television is. The channel went on the offensive against the families of the deceased students. It sent three senior reporters to the news conference it was not going to run a story about. The trio – Liaqat Ansari, Zeeshan Baksh and Arsalan Bhatti – led a pack of journalists who pounced on Mr. Abbas and Mazhar Nawaz, the brother of another deceased student, Farah Nawaz, as if they were criminals and not bereaved family members seeking justice.

Here is the audio sampling of some of the questions and comments – mostly bythe Dunya reporters, but joined by others too – the two men had to face:

The questions are loaded, the comments are libelous, the tone is accusatory and the mood is definitely hostile … 

Are you trying to push up the rate (of blood money)?

Do you want to disrobe the society by urging the families of other girls and boys to join you (in speaking out against the college management)?

There are allegations against you too … that you are demanding 50 lakh in blood money?

 

You also work with a private TV channel, are they pressurising you to do this press conference against another channel?

… You have all the forums available to you and you are being heard, it therefore appears you are just doing a drama here.

If you didn’t trust the management, why did you send your daughter there (to the concert)?

None of this is reported. It was just a show of strength by Dunya, aimed at not only drowning out the voice of the two men, and their hope for justice, but also at flaunting the ‘right’ of news media to plumb the depths of lowliness in protecting one of their own. Mind you, it’s not a case of homicide and no one is demanding eye for an eye; the families are only blaming the college management for negligence, for which ‘even an apology hasn’t been offered’. But Dunya has chosen to defend the management by removing the issue on ground and fighting it out in the gutter.

In the last couple of minutes of the recording above, you can hear raised voices of journalists accusing Mr. Abbas of hatching conspiracies against Dunya (without naming it) and a subdued Mr. Abbas profusely apologising and muttering in disappointment: ‘Are you people here to listen to me or to protect the channel?’

After Maya, what?

The social network community is rightly feeling smug at winning a battle against a particular TV show featuring Maya Khan and her troupe of sad and sexless women who chased away couples in public parks. And though the presenter, producer, and their employer, Samaa TV, behaved illegally and unethically, it was hardly an original idea, and Maya Khan – the failed actress who refuses to age gracefully – only copied what had been done several times by other TV channels.

Here is a clip from ARY News’ programme, ‘Zimmedar Kaun?’ produced and hosted by one Yasir Aqeel, who is not as grotesque as Maya but a lot more obnoxious and pestering. This clip was uploaded in April 2010 and therefore could have been the inspiration for Maya Khan’s show that got her banned, especially considering the similar plan of action and line of questioning:

And here is a clip from Metropolis TV on Karachi’s dating culture, from the good old 2009 when the only ones tormenting the dating community were beat policemen, and the only ones who had a problem with dating couples were married men who never found a date in their own time. And while this segment seems to be sympathetic to the dating couples, it nevertheless breaches privacy of many, putting them in harm’s way:

For the sake of record, Sun TV too got into the act as far back as in 2007 with a series called 'Chapa Maar' focusing on dating couples. This clip shows the Sun’s moral squad catching a boy who was, according to the host, below the age of 18 and his date, in a restaurant, in the presence of the girl's mother:

The only TV host to pick on Maya Khan scandal was Talat Hussain, on Dawn. It was a brave effort that amounted to depicting people in robes inside a public bath house. For starters, the host had concluded a recent programme on Pakistani students’ problems in UK with phrases like ‘qaumi izzat’ and ‘ghairat’ for some ‘unmarried women who have to live with men to save the cost of housing’:

And one of his guests on the show was Nadia Khan, whom he introduced as the doyen of private TV morning shows, and one with a well earned reputation for decency and respect for others’ privacy. Just to jog Talat Hussain’s memory, here is the clip of Nadia Khan taking on filmnstar Noor’s husband in Dubai. The clip ends with a very angry Nadia telling Noor: ‘… if my callers just complain to police that someone so much as stared at me, he’ll be put inside. Husband, my …’ She is awe-inspiring in her confidence with which she expects her viewers to assist her in a private and unpleasant matter. She was banned by Dubai and later, Geo, after this show:

So with the sacking of Maya Khan and banning of her show, we haven’t really removed an irritant – we have just realised it’s there. And the more you look the more you find. It runs deep in Pakistan’s media industry and requires many more battles before the citizens’ right to privacy, and right to be spared sermons by microphone wielding TV hosts, is established.

Stop Press

Enterprise Journalism 2

Technically, the term ‘district reporter’ is used for a correspondent not based in the city where the national media’s production facilities are. But in practice, the journalists working anywhere other than Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, are treated below par in terms of salaries, facilities, and capacity building. Reporters and sub-editors in Peshawer and Quetta – the provincial capitals that are also production hubs for a number of national news media outlets – are working for mainstream titles on monthly salaries of as little as six thousand rupees. Some drivers and domestic helpers in these two cities draw higher salaries. (The new Urdu daily, Nayee Baat has broken the tradition by hiring their staff in Peshawer at double or more the salaries they were drawing). Majority of correspondents in Gilgit are neither paid nor provided with equipment. They are expected to beg, borrow or steal, but file the text or footage in time anyways. They are only slightly more respectable than the district reporter, but they won’t let this distinction go unnoticed in their treatment of the small town colleague. The district reporters, realising their status as the lowest of the low, create their own power centres called Press Clubs.

Since the whole enterprise of district journalism is personality driven, it is inevitable that personalities clash and more press clubs come into being. In KPK Khyber Union of Journalists only represents Peshawer-based professionals while surrounding towns have their own press clubs. The Charsadda club has been padlocked after rival groups clashed over its control. It has been replaced by three different unions, all representing district correspondents in the vicinity. In Punjab, Jhelum has three press clubs, each claiming to represent the city journalists; Faisalabad saw a prolonged tug of war before press club elections could be held. And in Chakwal a group that had the backing of Ayaz Amir, threw out the management and took over the press club. The office bearers had to move court to retake control (more on why Ayaz Amir, the most famous son and politician of Chakwal and a senior journalist, had to fight with the lowly district reporters, in the next post).

As with any other racket, there are tiers to this enterprise as well. There’s the old school scribe who still wishes to change the world with his writing, raises funds for charitable causes and helps a few people with his clout. He could be a farmer, a shopkeeper or an office clerk, and practises journalism as passion or as an altruistic hobby. He may not excel in the craft but his intentions are good and they show up in his preachy articles published in the magazine section. For that matter the most famous rape story of Pakistan was broken by an unpaid district reporter (for daily Khabrain). Some of them make it to a big city and actually become ‘proper’ journalists.

The other district reporter is well off, has big ambitions, is on first-name terms with every rascal in town, greases every palm the government functionaries extend and squeezes every benefit he can from them, and more importantly, owns the distribution agency of the paper he works for. This last mentioned bit gives him enormous power over both his local rivals and the principles in the metro. He could sell all copies of the day, then have a picture taken of a group burning some newspapers on the street, and send the picture for publication and information that all copies went up in smoke. If he wants to show the paper is popular, he’ll start buying copies or forcing them on friends. If he doesn’t like something in the day’s paper, he’ll hold off distribution, and send the entire shipment back saying there are no buyers. He turns his employer into a business partner and matches them in crookedness, deed for deed.

At the end of the day though, the district reporter – even if he is a news agent and president of the press club as well – is no match for the employer. All his corruption is mere pennies when compared with that of his employer, who devised the whole system in the first place. The government, the NGOs, and the civil society have all learned to deal with the district reporter on his terms. No one has a problem with it.

The media houses should. They are fast losing credibility, and that would include newspapers too. In a round-up of the polls run on the Express Tribune website, one of the clearest verdicts was given on news media’s own trustworthiness. To the question: Do you believe the media in Pakistan is working in an ethical and professional manner? A whopping 91 per cent answered in negative.

The district reporter has very little to contribute to this trust deficit, but it’s him who could plug it most effectively with his community-based or ‘for people’ reporting – something never asked of him, and something he never learned to do.