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.

Sources of shame

Every journalist in this country has access to ‘informed sources’ who feature in a majority of stories in print and electronic media on a daily basis. Why then do the consumers of news complain of being uninformed, or worse, being confused and misled by the information?
One of journalism’s universal principles is to attribute all information to the relevant person, group or entity, clearly identified in the story. Exceptions must be very few and must require supervising editor’s consent. Quality media all over the world exercises discretion in the use of unnamed sources of information and where they are used, an attempt is made to justify it to the consumer, within the story. And there may still be unforeseen and adverse consequences. The last time BBC used an unnamed source in a high profile case was in 2003 when it reported to its domestic audience that a well informed official within the government believes the Tony Blair government ‘sexed up’ its Iraq dossier to get a pro-war endorsement from the Parliament. In that instance, the source committed suicide, two top BBC directors had to resign, the reporter lost his job, and the entire BBC had to retrain to ‘regain the confidence of the audiences’. (Highlights of Hutton inquiry report).
Compare this with Pakistani media that attributes even the most official and open announcements for public – sighting of moon by the designated committee of religious scholars, for instance – to unnamed sources (this example from AFP news headlines feed for mobile phone users). Why? I routinely ask journalists participating in my training workshops. I get different replies but the underlying perception is the same: Stories attributing information to unnamed sources sound more credible, even to editors. One reporter narrated this incident in which he attended a news conference held in Peshawer and filed his story. The next day he saw the Islamabad correspondent’s story published in his paper, instead. He called up the news editor and the explanation was: the Peshawer story seemed run of the mill as it quoted people that the rest of the media was quoting. But the Islamabad story stands out because it quotes ‘sources’. I would’ve thought the anecdote was a joke if the rest of the 20 or so mid-level to senior journalists hadn’t nodded in agreement with the narrator.
Reporters, sub-editors and senior editors know all too well that the term ‘sources’ is merely a euphemism for:
1- Reporter’s imagination. Just think of something and attribute it to sources. Who’s going to know!
2- Laziness. Attribution requires meticulously and contextually quoting a subject. It also requires the reporter to know the full name and exact designation of the person quoted. Why get into all this trouble when my editors are happy with the usage of ‘sources’.
3- Planted stories. Sources are not motivated to spill beans to help the cause of journalism, or to respect the right of public to know facts; they have their own personal or institutional reasons and they use news media to further their agenda.
4- Coercion/bribe. Journalists are ‘persuaded’, threatened and bribed all the time to put out some information without disclosing the source. Governments and intelligence agencies routinely use this ploy.
True, there is a story now and then that explains, to the satisfaction of an informed consumer, the reason(s) for withholding a source’s identity; and not all stories attributed to unnamed sources are malicious; but by and large the use of ‘sources’ in news media or not attributing information at all, fails journalists in their professional duty to be accurate, fair, objective and neutral, and should be viewed with suspicion by the consumers. And that brings us to the question of a news media outlet’s credibility – considered the most valuable asset of the organisation anywhere else, but here in the ‘sub chalta hei’ land, the media houses find nothing too shameful.
During Lal Masjid operation, late one night the Islamabad bureau chief, Hamid Mir, said live on Geo that his sources confirm a number of explosions in the residential sectors of the city. The information was wrong but Geo never retracted or followed up on that story, completely oblivious to the panic it created among Islamabad residents and their loved ones watching Geo all over Pakistan and abroad.
Except for a couple, all mainstream newspapers fell for the fake WikiLeaks story put out by Online news agency in December last year. No editor asked the question: Where did Online get this information from? The News and Jang even put it as their lead story, with the former not even crediting the story to the agency, giving the impression it was the paper’s own information. But next day when it dawned on editors that they’d been duped, some like Express Tribune accepted their mistake and apologised to the readers while The News chose to blame Online for not properly vetting the story, as if the newspaper editors get paid their salaries to trust the judgment of hundreds of news agencies that put out thousands of stories every day. With the innocence of a crafty teenager, The News still tried to save face: ‘We learnt from our sources that the story was dubious and may have been planted’. It WAS planted and the media group as a whole DID fall for it, was something the story never said.
Then again at the end of last month all newspapers, this time Dawn included, carried a story about the arrests made at Karachi airport of two suspected killers of Dr. Imran Farooq, on receiving a tip-off from British intelligence. The names of the arrested were not given in the Dawn story of August 26, and they were said to be affiliated with ‘a political party’. The Nation went a step ahead and screamed that the murder case was ‘nearing its conclusion’ with the arrest of ‘three suspects’ including the ‘mastermind, Khalid Shamim who also belongs to MQM’. The Nation story gave the un-attributed details of the plan as if it’d seen CCTV footage, and added that all suspects had owned up to their part in the crime. The same story with additional ‘sensational revelations’ appeared on Paktribune.com on August 27.
Here was a story the entire media seemed to endorse. But when MQM snubbed them for the reporting it termed “devoid of truth, baseless and concocted” the same media cowered into carrying the terse statement word for word, and none of them stood by their story or their sources. To add insult to injury, the interior minister weighed in with MQM in categorically denying if any arrests were made, and if British intelligence had tipped off Pakistan on this case.
What is the consumer of news to make of all this? If it was a war of attrition between MQM and an intelligence agency, how come media positioned itself to be the only loser? And without the consumers’ trust how long can this news media survive?