Daily Times

Pre-2002 Pakistan was, or rather seemed, more peaceful and less sinful, more humane and less savage, and definitely more orderly and less chaotic for the common citizen. Then came the transformation. The advent and consequential liberalisation of print and electronic media coupled with social media regimes transformed the social peace into a frenzied chaos. The society which was earlier shaped with calmness was overwhelmed with social stress and disorientation. We are witnessing melodramatic socio-corporate competition that has taken the citizenry back.

On your easy couch, tune to any news channel and you would always find a surprise that will startle you. Suddenly, you would feel like it was the end of times; the arrival of the extinction hour and the last day of mother planet, Earth. Sensation with uncontrolled mechanism makes for yellow journalism. Every news channel would attempt to throw up a flashing breaking news pop up first claiming the news was their ‘first caught’. No matter how bearable is the social and moral value of the news item; it will be broadcast in a thrilling manner. It could be the news of an eight year old angel being physically molested and then murdered but is flashed out and broadcast in a celebrated manner. This is where the viewer receives the social shock and the subsequent stress from it lasts for weeks. It would have been easier to manage that specific stress if only the viewer was left to live with that for some weeks but that never happens and how could it, because there are reporters in the field who are after such sensational pieces of news all the time.

It is taught in the textbooks that media only reflects how society looks in the social mirror. If that is accepted, it would mean we have horrific social looks as reflected by the media. Is our society as pestilent as reported by our televised media? Are we so ugly or is it the work of pure art as drawn down by the media?

It is taught in the textbooks that media only reflects how society looks in the social mirror. If that is accepted, it would mean we have horrific social looks as reflected by the media. Is our society as pestilent as reported by our televised media? Are we so ugly or is it the work of pure art as drawn down by the media?

The corporate aspect of media is another source of such anarchic show of society. There have been instances where forged news stories were built and special news events were manufactured by so called leading journalists. The constructive motive behind all such manufactured episodes of journalism was the economic gains by certain individuals and media houses. Temptation and morality are the twins which cannot co-exist. This raises serious questions on the show of moral infallibility claimed so gallantly by our mainstream journalists. The news media channels are slowly turning into becoming mega corporations whose economic and financial interests are always at the peak of all other interests: human, social, national, and professional. After passage of 17 years since 2002, media has now become a major party to state’s actions.

Extremism is not altogether a negative trait if it is properly filtered and structured into a shape where it could be controlled. The pre 2002 media was one extreme of obedience and servitude which had both positive and the negative aspects. The post 2002 liberalised media is yet again another extreme. Media is a means to show to the world how our society really looks like. Amid these extremes, media has to be self responsible and raise certain ethics both social and political to provide a base for the citizenry as to both entertain and teach them in the Aristotelian manner.

The writer is a civil servant based in Quetta