In September 1976, a six-story apartment building collapsed in Karachi. Over 100 people were killed. The building had been constructed in 1975. According to newspaper reports, the owner of the building had used “inferior quality construction material.” The press was up in arms.

Some newspapers accused the then government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of ‘allowing’ the builder to get away with it because he had connections with some ‘higher ups’ in the government. Of course, this was blurted without any proof or evidence whatsoever.

It’s one thing that conspiracy theories are aired by a stressed or aggravated group of people, but entirely something else when journalists start doing the same. However, some newspapers did begin to lower their tone a bit when the owner was arrested. It turned out that six members of his own family had died in the tragedy as well. They were living in the same building.

When Prime Minister Bhutto visited the area and met the survivors, newspapers reported that he was “emotionally received”, as he embraced them and ordered their relocation. However, a populist Urdu daily, despite reporting this, also added another tiny piece of ‘news’. Apparently, after meeting with the survivors, the PM was taken to a “cleaner area” and a lunch box was brought for him. And as he sat eating on his own, poor survivors just stood there watching. 

It’s one thing that conspiracy theories are aired by a stressed or aggravated group of people, but entirely something else when journalists start doing the same

Now here’s the fact: Pakistan Television (PTV) too showed the PM having food. But he was sitting on a makeshift charpoy with a few men who had lost their loved ones in the tragedy. The charpoy was surrounded by rubble. And yes, a lunchbox was brought out. It was a “tiffin box” whose contents were shared by the PM with the grieving men. The lunch was for them, not him. 

So what was the newspaper trying to achieve by completely distorting this scene? We will come to that. But first, let’s fast forward to 47 years later. On 17 February 2023, three heavily armed Islamist militants, who were also wearing “suicide jackets”, attacked the Karachi Police Office compound. After much difficulty, two militants were killed and one blew himself up. Three policemen, one rangers personnel and one civilian also perished.

The policemen at the station were taken by surprise when the militants barged their way in by lobbing grenades and opening indiscriminate firing with their automatic weapons. The cops fought back, and then, with the help of the Rangers, eliminated the terrorists. The media in general empathised with the cops and praised them.

However, just a day after the attack, with the families of the dead cops still trying to come to terms with their violent demise, a reporter tweeted that “according to sources” the policeman in charge of the station’s security was “drinking whisky” at the time of the attack. 

While those sources used by reporters who were covering the attack were speaking about what was happening inside the station during the attack, one wonders why the ‘source’ used by this particular reporter was more interested in what a policeman was allegedly doing just before the attack? But more so, was this reporter suggesting that the attack took place because the cop was sipping whisky? According to all accounts, the station was well-guarded but the militants managed to brutally muscle their way in. So one just couldn’t see the point of the tweet. 

In September 2008, when Islamists detonated a truck packed with explosives in front of a five-star hotel in Islamabad (killing 54 people), a journalist was criticised when he reported that the “real target” of the militants were US Marines staying at the hotel. His report was based on a source — a parliamentarian. But just days later, the source threatened to sue the journalist for “printing a pack of lies.”

Critics of the report lamented that it was as if the reporter were trying to justify the attack and, in so doing, trivialise the death and destruction that the bombing had caused. This was also a period when it was common to watch and hear men (and some women) on various private television channels actually rationalising militant violence. Thankfully, such displays finally lost their spot after the 2014 militant attack on a school in Peshawar.

Journalists may try to look and sound objective, but often, in a charged environment, especially in highly polarised societies, it is not uncommon to come across journalists and media outlets who start taking entirely subjective and questionable positions.

The newspaper that had distorted the whole lunchbox episode in 1976, was a vehement critic of the Bhutto regime. Once the daily began to realise that the regime is actually managing to attract some praise for the way it was handling the tragedy, the newspaper couldn’t help but slip in the lunchbox ‘news’. It was a blatant distortion of what had actually taken place. For the newspaper, the PM needed to continue being portrayed as a cruel, selfish and evil man. Not the man sitting on a charpoy with some survivors amidst the rubble. 

So then, how can one comprehend the purpose of the reporter who suddenly slipped in a tweet about a cop drinking alcohol just before the attack on the police station? This reporter is often criticised on social media for having sympathies for certain conservative parties. I can’t substantiate that. 

But, to me at least, his tiny tweet — just a day after militants killed four law enforcers and a civilian — trivialised the deaths and the attack itself. The media has to be very careful about how it covers what is possibly another war against terrorism that the country is on the brink of entering. Editors and owners of media outlets must not allow the repeat of how the first war was covered when apologists and journalists with problematic ideological leanings were provided an open platform.

This callous approach had contributed to the audacity with which the militants often unleashed their violence. What’s more, they had also begun to parrot the narratives that were originally formulated by the apologists.

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 26th, 2023