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January 03, 2009
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Saturday
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Muharram 05, 1430
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Of breaking news and those trying to break the breakers
Of breaking news and those trying to break the breakers
BREAKING news — or whatever passes for it — is now an integral part of our lives. Like it or loathe, there is just no escape from it.
While there can always be a debate about what specifically, constitutes breaking news and/or how the electronic media is evolving in Pakistan, there is no doubt that today, people are much more informed and, in the ultimate analysis, the better for it.One says this despite the increasing media scrutiny in recent times from both the powers-that-be, which are mostly inclined to see it as a “necessary evil”, and even from within the media ranks, where eyebrows have been raised over the role of certain TV anchors, who are accused of “working on agendas” and behaving like demigods.
In line with such thinking, one will find a chunk of the population that even blames the media for contributing to the bad news by making a fever pitch.
In Islamabad, one can find takers of this ‘philosophy’ with equal propensity amongst hoi polloi around kiosks on the roadside and the chatterati at five-star cafes.
With still more TV news channels and newspapers coming to the fore — and therefore, adding to the buzz — the perception is that it is the media, which is creating the problem with its barrage of live images and no-holds-barred talk shows. A more simplistic, if not naïve, interpretation is hard to imagine. Characterised by a ‘shoot-the-messenger’ mindset, the detractors would rather want the message to get lost in the din of deliberate denunciation.
The fare in Islamabad, has over time, offered a substantive view of how coercive attempts are made — in the words of one government minister — “to rein in the monster”. Elsewhere, the Punjab governor, for one, has no qualms even using that pseudonym in public discourse.
To begin with, it is easy for people to forget how those, who break news are, at times, close to becoming news themselves — of the cold statistic kind. It is almost as if there is a price to pay for uncovering unpalatable truths involving the high and mighty.
As if proof was needed, two reports released in Islamabad last week reflected on the consequences of doing precisely that — even removed from the hot cauldron that forms the country’s northwest.
Intermedia’s Annual Report on the State of Media gives grim figures of how the fourth pillar of the state was pilloried with often, fatal consequences. Overall, 12 journalists were killed in 2008 and no less than 201 attacks perpetrated against the media.
South Asia Free Media Association’s (Safma) year-end review also makes for disturbing reading, where Pakistan appears in free fall with state attempts to control, nay muzzle the media. But the notion that such treatment is exclusive to authoritarian rule appears to have taken a beating recently.
One does not have to travel too far back in time to arrive at this conclusion. In the last fortnight alone, Ansar Abbasi and Rauf Klasra, to name two outstanding journalists and men of integrity, have been receiving threats to their lives for exposing the rot in the system and those presiding over it.
If anything, this gives lie to the perception that journalists are securer in Islamabad than elsewhere in the country because the powerful would be wary of an amplified base that their actions would provoke if they tried ‘to shake up the hornet’s nest’.
In fact, target-shooting was very much the buzz in town last week.
This newspaper was not immune from knee-jerk reactions in both Islamabad and New Delhi following a brilliant exposé about a hoax call made to the Presidency that, thanks to its gullible receiver, could have potentially, triggered war between India and Pakistan.
While the government in Islamabad was caught with an obvious chink in the armour (it then, descended into a denial mode about the gaffe), New Delhi was in the old groove of dubbing it as an ISI-sponsored propaganda!
Since we are on the subject, the role of the Pakistani media in the standoff with India following the Mumbai attacks also bears mention. Used to a hyphenated description, many readily lumped it with the obsessive propaganda unleashed by its counterpart in India.
The fact is the media on this side of the LoC, initially exercised restraint bar the odd TRP-hungry TV upstart, but only appeared to pander to the “national interest” (admittedly, a difficult term to define beside the fiction woven by governments), when faced with a frenzied onslaught from across the border and a government in Islamabad that was blundering along aimlessly amid the rising mercury.
Interestingly, clueless power-wielders in Islamabad then suddenly, started to hail the “revolution” (read the electronic media) for its spirited “defence of national interest”.
Looked at dispassionately, it can always be argued if such posturing by the media — for want of a better description — fits in with the highest standards of professional practice, but few can deny that ultimately, an effective and vibrant media is critical to the survival and wellbeing of a state and its citizens.
The writer is News Editor at Dawn News. He may be contacted at
kaamyabi@gmail.com
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