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.