We are now at the gates of an electronic revolution. But there are chances that this opportunity can be lost to the greed of power
Beards; clean-shaven; bareheaded; head covered — all of them bravely freighted a flammable cargo that had the makings of a blowup on public airwaves. The roundtable that night was airing its views on adultery beamed from thousands of miles in a studio set in Islamabad.
It was a sober, serious yet feisty discourse among the religious, conservative and liberal milieu of Pakistani society. They dared to discuss a topic made unspeakable by centuries-soiled socio-cultural religious mores permanently patrolled by our conscience-keepers.
A knockout, one that prompted Pakistani community living with a dish in the US to react and take a position for a change. Some considered it to be radioactive, others with a liberal bias welcomed it and wished we had more of the same from back home on satellite TV.
The American channels in contrast seemed to pale besides this dashingly bold show. Who would want to watch the silly reality programmes, the newest craze in America or hear the 24/7 coarse gabfests as the American E-Day approaches?
Pakistan will soon have two dozen more TV networks to flick around and hopefully strangle the foreign channels that have shaped public opinion by stirring up a media buzz through delivery of persuasive messages in the past. American and British TV has had its day in Pakistan. And I say, good riddance. Besides, Al-Jazeera is giving the western media hives by capturing 35 million viewers in the Arab world. America, wherever possible, has blocked access to reporters of this independent Qatar TV station by falsely accusing them of not being “responsible”.
Good things bring along a flotsam of bad baggage and my fear is that the new TV channels in Pakistan will puke if owners stoop low to spade in profits over principles and smother competition even it takes getting into the gutter to aggressively invite yellow journalism and crassness.
Media wars are a legend in America. Everyone here is after good ratings, not ethics and truth telling.
The joke is on the big networks and cable owned and operated by multi-billion corporations. Shamed by a recent poll showing that a heft number of yuppies get their daily diet of current news from Comedy Channel’s The Daily Show — a fake and make-believe news show aired late at night.
Hilarious, isn’t it? For real journalism, fair and balanced, become a warrior, buy a camcorder, put on your flak jacket and joggers and roam the kutcha-pucca roads across Pakistan and not fandango in fancy five-star hotels. At every corner, every hamlet, every gali, you’ll find truth lurking, often stranger than fiction.
Digital filmmaking — inexpensive and mobile — offers journalists a world of reality with unique points-of-view and without interference from the media bosses to go into the heartland of the issue, not just waltz around, sunk on plush sofas in air-controlled TV salons, hair poufed, eyebrows plucked (even men do it!), face made up, flippantly fighting for the rights of the underdog with politicians, bureaucrats and policy wonks tanked in their starched shalwar kamiz and phony concern before the cameras.
Today’s private TV channels, like PTV sadly devote heck of a lot air time to their starry-eyed, button-down TV anchors enjoying VIP company. As a viewer, why would I waste my time watching the same old discredited gang whom I have seen in action for dog-gone years? Predictably their non-responsive response is compost of spin, hype and straight out lying. So why invite them? Surely the interviewers cannot be that naove to expect these VIPs to thread the whole story which involves who said what to whom and then what happened and present it on a platter to hoi polloi!
Many a media baron would like to bake his cake and eat it too by creating an entertaining talk-show channel for dissemination of his own agenda couched as news and information. It’s money stupid! It would cost a lot less to get two people to snipe at each other in a studio than to pay reporters and producers to excavate real news.
Instead, why not flirt with innovation and creativity to spark independent sniffing and outfox the VIPs whose sole motive is to put the press hounds off the smell while hogging air time? Cut a clip out of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 which has enticed America and earned him over $94 million in four weeks. All that Moore has done is a cut and paste job: a fast-paced montage of news clips showing Bush as the scofflaw, choreographed with great commentary and lively music.
Become a scavenger. There’s hidden treasure lying around for a reporter with muscle to shovel through priceless archival footage covered with cobwebs. Recast it, breaking free of old rules for TV journalism, a breeding ground for historical, biographical and environment stories. The result can be manna from heaven.
Why cover press conferences where reporters inevitably elbow each other out by interrupting a colleague who is about to get an answer from the man/woman on the podium but is stopped midway? It happens all the time, both back home and here.
“The medium is the message” is a metaphor that bears reality. The TV has proved to be the most potent of all the mediums. Remember Bush’s White House chief of staff Andrew Card glibly telling reporters that “from marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August” therefore his boss waited until September to begin the push into Iraq?
While his dad, George H. Bush in 1990 launched “Operation Desert Storm” after a public relations firm spent $10.8 million of Kuwaiti money to promote “liberate Kuwait” via TV ads. A 15-year old Kuwaiti girl was televised testifying to the US Congress and UN Security Council on Iraqi soldiers dumping Kuwaiti babies out of incubators. Guess what? The girl, as journalists discovered later, was none other than the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in America!
Media monopoly is another concern. Mainstream newspapers, with their new TV channels, can stifle the smaller TV stations as happens here. “If one man decides what is and what isn’t news in New York City, it’s Rupert Murdoch” (owner of Fox News) who already has Tony Blair, UK and Australia in his power.
Can you guess who will be Pakistan’s Rupert Murdoch, if ever there is one?
Here’s a thought: how about the new TV stations having their own ‘public editor’, a watchdog, an ombudsman, fielding complaints from viewers and throwing them googly-style back to the channel owners; reporters; editors; anchors? Most major newspapers here have public editors, with The New York Times joining ranks. “Lord knows, we get a little puffed up sometimes,” says Harris, a reporter for the Times’ business section. “Having someone who can puncture our over-stuffed egos is a really good thing.” See what I mean?
My hero is Brian Lamb. Twenty-five years ago, he formed C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network). Today, 50 million Americans watch it because it’s the most trusted source of political news, giving its viewers a front-row seat to the democratic process, providing audiences access to the live ‘gavel-to-gavel’ proceedings of the US Congress and other important events to facilitate forums for debate and discussion on public policy, without filtering or distorting their points of view, affording pundits, journalists, analysts, politicians and authors to discuss the crucial matters of the day.
Its 48 hours of Weekend Book TV is a remarkable source of ideas and arguments. Its masterly American Presidents provides a peep into the past: “if the academic establishment, with all its theoretical gasbaggery, is not going to teach history, then the people who will carry on telling the stories of the past will be untrained history buffs and popular historians on C-SPAN.”
Whoever will blaze a C-SPAN trail in Pakistan deserves a big thank-you in advance.
We are now at the gates of an electronic revolution. But there are chances that this opportunity can be lost to the greed of power 
