Khabarnama: back to square one?

PTV’s much publicized reform of its flagship news programme, the Khabarnama seems to have died an untimely death. And it’s probably not a coincidence that this has happened with the installation of a new government, and the arrival of an information minister who is not the sort to keep a low profile.

At the end of last year, a bit before the October elections, there was a much-publicized reorganization of sorts in PTV, especially its news section. People from the private sector were hired, notably Talat Husain, who soon grew into an incisive moderator/interviewer, not hesitating to ask government ministers sometimes the most awkward of questions. A former bureau chief of news agency AFP in Karachi was also hired, all to give the news bulletin on PTV World more credibility. The broadcast time and presentation format of these bulletins was changed. The usual time of nine in the night was discarded in favour of two bulletins, one in English at eight pm, and another in Urdu at 10, probably in recognition of the fact that the viewing and sleeping habits of the average Pakistani had somewhat changed with the advent of cable.

The content of Khabarnama, at least for some time, was changed to make the items presented actually rank in descending order of news-worthiness. Of course, the usual item by the ‘Kashmir Media Service’ could not be left out, and the odd reference to the president and the governors (there was no chief minister then) had to be made but there wasn’t too much official propaganda. This is not to say that the Khabarnama on PTV World began to rival that of the BBC, but just that it marginally became credible. And with professional journalists — as opposed to news ‘presenters’ (who wouldn’t know a news story if it hit them in the head) — reading the news, viewers could expect some interesting questions, from the reporters in the field. However, all of that seems to have gone out of the window with the arrival of the new government. The news bulletins on PTV World seem to gradually have become indistinguishable from the thoroughly discredited ones on PTV-1 (the old PTV, that is). Talat Husain, it has been heard, is to join a private channel overseas, most probably Prime TV, while the one other professional journalist of some repute is in the process of leaving the channel, in part due to her impending marriage. What is left behind are the usual news readers who seem to have no journalistic sense of any kind. In any case, there are literally over a hundred VIPs — add all the federal ministers, ministers of state, advisers to the prime minister, governors, chief ministers, provincial ministers — whose activities have to be covered. Clearly, the fact that Khabarnama cannot (or at least should not) really go beyond 45 minutes places a severe constraint on what actual news can be included in it.

Producers of Khabarnama are also blessed with a bevy of brilliant television reporters, all hired recently after the glasnost culture that took over PTV, albeit for a brief while. These gifted reporters send in ‘features’ that are included, much to the displeasure of most viewers, in the daily news bulletin. Take, for example the coverage of art exhibition by Shazia Sikander, a correspondent for Khabarnama from Lahore. The choice of shows she covers seems to indicate that no one at PTV has any idea of what makes for even passable artwork. Of course, no one would discourage the promotion of new and hitherto undiscovered artists, but that does not mean that work of the shoddiest quality should be presented to a potential audience of millions, just to prove that the state broadcaster covers art and culture. Anyone who has seen and heard such reports would agree that the highfalutin Urdu used is beyond the understanding of most Pakistanis.

This is further compounded by the onscreen performance of most of these reporters who often seem to ask the most obvious and irrelevant questions from senior government officials, precisely when an incisive and relevant query is needed. Take the case of recent attacks on the Sui gas pipeline. After several days, the petroleum secretary took out time to visit the site of the attacks. PTV’s reporter from Islamabad called him on the phone in relation with the visit and asked: “Toa bataeeaye, app ko udhar pohanch kay kaisa lug raha hai” (“So please tell us how do you feel after reaching there?”). What kind of inane question was this, at a time when many in the country — including thousands of Sui Northern consumers affected by a temporary suspension in supply — would have liked to know what the government was doing to prevent further attacks on such key installations.

The secretary, by the way, said in response that there really was not much of a problem and that everything was under control. The reporter, gifted as he was, did not even raise any issues regarding the causes of the attacks, and viewers came off thinking that everything was hunky-dory. The next day, the pipeline became the target of another attack. — OMAR R. QURAISHI

(E-mail: omarq@cyber.net.pk)