Television can be as sublime as it can be ludicrous. Many of us who pine for the drama of the black-and-white PTV days and fondly recall stage programmes hosted by polished professionals such as Zia Mohiuddin, to name just one, may be afflicted with a generational nostalgia disorder. But watching some of the so-called shows these days you cannot call them anything but ludicrous.

Today’s ratings-propelled, hugely-affluent TV host or anchor is generally characterised by an abnormally-inflated ego which is primed to come into play at a moment’s notice. And, when it does, collateral damage is a foregone conclusion, for the anchor’s ego is only rivalled by a supreme sense of self-righteous superiority. A display of bizarre histrionics can get you sufficiently high ratings for the channel to tolerate all your (on-screen) tantrums. The appetite of the audience to turn the other cheek to the anchor has meant the star can throw all caution and self-restraint to the wind.

Occasionally, the TV star or the channel will of course complain with justification that a seemingly damning clip from their show is being seen and slammed by social media users simply because its full context was missing. They say had it been seen in context there would be little cause for them to be at the receiving end of protest or opprobrium. Yes, context is critically important especially when passing verdicts or judging content unfavourably.

The Sahir Lodhi incident is not the first nor will it be the last

So when I saw a clip put forward by TV show host Sahir Lodhi from one of his Ramazan transmissions where he appeared upset because he’d been criticised unfairly on social media for rather angrily interrupting a woman participant in a debating competition on his show, I went online to see the whole episode to ascertain for myself if the TV host got it wrong on this occasion or had actually been wronged.

Here is what I saw. The young woman debater was advancing arguments passionately about the status of women and their rights in Quaid-i-Azam’s Pakistan and her poetic lament included asking Mr Jinnah to come and see for himself the current state of affairs. She paused as the live audience broke into an applause. Mr Lodhi seemed to have flipped here. While telling the debater to stop, he lashed at her for what she’d said (or to be more accurate what he imagined she’d said) and the audience for applauding her as she had — in his view — challenged the Father of the Nation in a derogatory manner. He went on and on.

The young woman tried to explain what she was saying but the show host would have none of it and flew off the handle. His irrational outburst in support of the Quaid would get him into trouble and more than just social media. He misarticulated what he was trying to say and ended up saying Quaid-i-Azam “nein laakhon ko shaheed karwa diya [Quaid-i-Azam got hundreds of thousands martyred].” This sentence is now the subject matter of a Pemra notice to him.

Yes, before the programme ended he pressed his palms together and asked the young woman for forgiveness ‘if I have hurt your feelings’ because, he said, he gets emotional whenever Quaid-i-Azam is not given his due. He then continued in the misogynistic tenor of ‘now please don’t start crying as girls normally do’ and also tried to reassure her by saying she was like his sister and all women who came to his show were like his sisters or mother.

I, for one, didn’t understand the purpose of such an apology and remarks. One, because the fault was his all along because he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to the debater’s words and understand what she was saying. Two, whether man or woman, she was an individual who was making sense. A woman does not need to be a sister or mother to be worthy of respect as an equal. He was trying to be all humility and honey while patronising her all the way back to her seat for the next round.

I worry about being unduly hard on fellow professionals for such transgressions. But I do find it irritating that the earpiece that presenters wear have no editors offering sane, discreat feedback or instructions. The only purpose earpieces serve, by and large, is to tell the presenters to interrupt their rant and take that supremely important, money-spinning advert break.

Till such time as channels accord priority to employing editors to edit content live as well as recorded, such a faux pas will be a matter of routine. Today it was Mr Lodhi who, by no means, is alone. There will be someone else tomorrow. We will criticise, condemn even lament but the show will go on exactly as it does today.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 11th, 2017