Along with the more generalised economy-, army- and Musharraf-hating, media-bashing appears to have joined the list of Pakistan’s favourite activities. Everyone has a point of view and unfortunately for the positively quivering with excitement media organisations, few of the said points of view tend to be of the congratulatory variety.

There are many themes to the media-bashing, some of them directly related to the events of the past year or so and others that are old hat. We’ve discussed, ad nauseum, whether or not the media “go too far”, whether the organisations take sides and are becoming politicised (as though that were a crime, thank you, Zia!), even whether it was wise to have allowed the liberalisation of the field in the first place. Such complaints are a direct outcome of the recent twists and turns in the bewildering plot of the story of Pakistan, the manner in which various crises came to a head and the parts played by various state and non-state actors. Fair enough. But meanwhile, one of the oldest accusations in the books has also been pulled out and dusted off: that the media communicate only bad news.

This amounts to shooting the messenger. True, much of the news coming out of Pakistan is less than heartening. But what are the media organisations to do to protect the sensibilities of the chattering classes? The media can only report on what is happening, on what the developments are on the various stages that constitute the on-going drama that is Pakistan. And the realities are that we’re short of food, energy, water and apparently everything else as well. We’re also short of sound economic management, policy planning, statesmanship and apparently, basic good sense. Like it or not, that is the news coming out of Pakistan. It’s not good – blame that on the governments on whose watch, and with whose collaboration, these various crises were fomented.

On the other hand, as the discerning connoisseur of the news will realise, developments of a positive nature do occur and these are also reported. Good news that as a result of quiet negotiations by the provincial government in the NWFP, the Taliban have condescended to allow girls to go to school. Good news that Rehmat Shah Afridi has been released. Good news that despite the odds, the coalition has not so far fallen apart. I’ll admit that this does feel rather like clutching at straws but well … that’s life on this side of the pond: tough.

Meanwhile, it is also important to realise that news is, by its very nature, constituted of things that disturb the pattern. That is how the human mind and society as a whole function. The unspoken underlying assumption is that life (or a society, state or nation) is ordinarily smooth-running and progressive. Anything that impedes this pattern becomes ‘news’. Consider, for example, why someone’s death is treated as news (whatever the scale of the circuit, family, local or national). The accepted default situation is a continuing, normal life, which only becomes news when the pattern is disturbed.

In the same way, the default situation is that there are enough jobs for everybody, enough food to go around, etc. This is not news, the reverse is.

Also, I can’t help but ponder the implications of headlines such as “Enough wheat to feed everybody” (which begs the comment ‘finally!’) or “Electric supply adequate for national needs” or “Government functioning smoothly” or “Bridge inaugurated by president has not yet fallen”. I think that such news would imply a default situation of perennial wheat and power shortages, and a perpetually inept administration. Would news audiences feel more heartened if the media organisations took this line? I wonder, particularly since shortages and inefficiency are in fact Pakistan’s default situation. After all gang warfare in Lyari, for example, has been the reality for so long that it’s an ‘old’ now. By this standard, “Day goes by without gun battle” is a significant development. Hmmm. Maybe the critics are right and the media organisations need to change tack.

Post-script: On the subject of whether, variously, the media, the lawyers, the judges, civil society and the citizenry can be accused of being “politicised” or “politicising the issues”: well, thank goodness we’ve all finally woken up to the realisation that politics is at the root of most of the issues facing the country. Economic policy, agricultural growth (or the lack of it), industry expansion, employment, food availability … all these matters are decided on the basis of politics and a country’s political realities at any given time. So yes, the issues are politicised, because they are basically political in nature. And that is a good thing. Being political is not a crime, being apolitical is.

—hmumtaz@dawn.com