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.

Short history of a near exclusive

1041 PM: My daughter walks into the TV room trying hard to look ill. ‘Can I not go to school tomorrow because I am feverish. I think it’s dengue’? Before I could say ‘no way’ the door shuts with a bang, as if hit by a gust of wind. ‘OMG what was that? Did you hear that? It must be a bomb blast’ she says with renewed hope.
1043: The same ticker appears on several news channels: A blast heard in Islamabad. Location is being ascertained.
1045: It’s a private laboratory in Blue Area, says Aaj. Geo agrees and adds the information that glass windows are shattered in nearby buildings. Express hasn’t gone beyond identifying the area. It’s the ARY reporter who finally comes live with definitive information: ‘it’s Envoy hotel’, but the ticker at the bottom of the screen disagrees: it’s City hotel, it’s City hotel … it keeps yelling in a loop.
1050: Express ends the suspense by showing live video of the scene of blast. It is indeed City hotel in Blue Area, and there is definitely broken glass on the ground. The frame also shows a woman sitting calmly in a palanquin, Idi Amin style, and is being carried by two men who don’t seem to know where to take her. Still no sign of blood and gore.
1051: Majority of channels have disrupted their talk-shows to take the viewers live to the scene with a proud ‘exclusive’ displayed across the TV screens in water mark. Reporters are frantically conveying information: the blast occurred on the 3rd floor. It was 4th floor. It was top floor of the six-storey building. ‘So as you heard our reporter there’s been an explosion on the ground floor of … repeats the Sama newscaster. There’s also disagreement on the number of injured; they are either 2, 4 or 5, but there’s definitely a woman among them. Could she be the fair version of Idi Amin?
1055: It seems the source of blast was a pesky gas pipe. But there isn’t even a matchstick flame in sight. Excitement melts into discernable irritation, but the News One newscaster persists: ‘Are you sure there’s no crater or severed head or limbs … like in a planted bomb or a suicide attack?’ The reporter thinks a while and then says confidently: I can confirm that the injured men looked Afghans’. Meanwhile, PTV is as calm as ever, telling its viewers how significant the first day of APC has been, with no mention of the near-exclusive incident just half a kilometre down the road.
My daughter’s excitement is gone too. She seems very disappointed … and ill again. She looks at me as if deciding whether or not to stick with dengue, but then gives up and leaves.
TV journalists in Quetta must be smiling at their hapless colleagues in Islamabad. To know why, rewind to the morning of September 7 in Quetta:
There’s been a real terrorist attack and the entire national media is at work. Four TV channels among them claim their footage to be ‘exclusive’ while streaming or replaying different angles and shots of the same incident. These are: ARY, Geo, Express and Express 24/7.
Perhaps the fear of having their images stolen is the reason the editors choose to stamp them? But then faced with the same concern, Duniya and Samaa simply insert a watermark of their logo. And News One and Aaj do’t feel the need to do even that.
The Islamabad-based journalists of the ‘Exclusive Club’ got to wait for another opportunity.