Amjad Mahmood
NOT many in world would watch a terror act with eagerness or would willingly be a party to something horrific or a barbaric act creating havoc and chaos…but we, the masses, in all our sincerity and relative naivety stand party to a large, complex and impactful web of free speech terrorism. When President Musharraf allowed private TV networks to operate, decision was probably aimed at having a counter-narrative building setup under the watch of PEMRA. Media’s freedom changed Pakistan, much lesser in good sense though. It became the 4rth pillar of state with a much swifter and effective reach than any other organ. Luckily for news media, unpredictable geo-political and controversial domestic fluid environment of two decades provided a favourable breeding ground for our media (mainly news) industry. Result was visible by mid-2000s. An un-controllable, no holds barred category of weaponised platforms radiating selective narratives on the will of whoever can end up with his finger on the trigger first. While unrestricted flow of news channels changed the fortunes of media house owners, it also gave birth to a new professional stream aka Journalists cum TV anchors cum host cum analysts (J-ANC-HO-LYST). They can be regarded as VEBLEN EFFECT of media, where consumer perceives an item to be of higher value because it costs more. This effect creates a perception by controlling the context, context controls the mind and controlling mind equates controlling reality. But in essence controlled reality may not be the reality we are looking for.
Journalism, which had barely featured in the preferred profession list for the Pakistani youth at least till early 90s, transformed into a hot spot with capability of an instant rise. It brought with it fame, money, power to exploit, liberty to influence, an opportunity to rub shoulders with the mighty, a celebrity status and unconditional support from the tribe. Spearheads of free speech mantra had the reins of power hostage to their one hour daily appearance. However, not all was wrong with news media. The awareness to masses in domains of politics, national issues, exposing social ills, acting as an un-elected opposition to government’s policies, countering international narratives, supporting social responsibilities and unearthing of many criminal practices will remain high notes for our media.
Many national and social awareness campaigns were also successfully executed. While media performed these wonders it also selectively chose aspects detrimental to national image, ideology or policies (Though many of such acts can be argued as irresponsible rather mal-intent). To analyse correctly where does the news media spearheads stand today, scrolling the twitter time lines of many jancholysts should be enough to provide clarity. Undoubtedly, it’s the news media itself which self-destructed trust of the masses. It was the sudden, unplanned and unsupervised mushrooming of news race that made these channels even bigger franchise than exclusive entertainment airing. Immense power without responsibility proved to be disastrous for national image and at numerous occasions have impacted national course of action adversely. Unfortunately, there are number of incidents where news media functioned in an inciting and inflammatory manner during the roughest period in Pakistan’s history (Lal Masjid, Dawn Leaks and Mumbai attacks can easily be regarded as lowest points).
While discussing our news media exclusively, foreign support or aid or investment (reader to chose metaphor as per his convenience) played a significant role in detouring the news media trends (Obama announcing 50 million USD aid for Pakistani media reported by RT/Dunya TV and similar activities covered by Express Tribue in 2011).It may be safely assumed that many such foreign funding may not have surfaced yet. As foreign money poured in for influencing mindsets of masses, domestic players saw alignments in objectives and jumped on the bandwagon. By any measure, sitting governments of at least previous two regimes cannot be cleared of charges to allow these unruly practices, most probably because they stood as a party or expected to draw huge advantages.
A simple litmus test would be asking views of a commoner on the street, where he would identify each TV channel and jancholyst with each political party or his/her affiliation with a certain foreign/domestic narrative. These results are the killers of the essence of journalism. While masses expected jancholysts to present the truth as it is, they got bombarded with biased perspectives which stood divorced from every day morals and ethics common to every society of the world. News media was feeding itself on the carcass of political immorality, remains of social dishonesty and collective ethical failures of various institutions. As of today, media stands in a precarious spectrum with shades of grey and it seems adamant to stay there 24/7. An attempt to re-write rules of the game by current government has further created an upheaval in news media. Media houses have down sized and few have closed their operation due to financial crunch. This reflects a sliding trend and only way up is for news media not to play as per specific agendas, come out and redraw the parameters, develop capability to make own profession accountable, be persistent in your views, take initiative of unplugging from shady perspectives and define your allegiance with state narratives and ideologies. While world moves in post truth era, our news media must switch from grey to black & white, as history will correct itself in future with no shades of grey.
—The writer holds a Master degree in Strategic Studies from National Defence.
