The media is an important element in world politics today. The electronic media, in particular, is considered a pivotal political player both within and between states. Lee Atwater said, “In politics perception is reality.” Since the mid-20th century, the media has been a major tool for building public perceptions in politics. In the modern military sciences, the media is used as the principal weapon for propaganda warfare. The development of private news channels in Pakistan over the last decade brought about a fundamental variation in the country’s political dynamic. On the one hand, it has partly initiated accountability and transparency in politics while on the other hand, it is being blamed for creating tremendous chaos and anarchy in society. The pros and cons of these news channels aside, the most critical issue is the lack of objectivity. Pakistani media has not been able to define its role in the political development of society.
The changing dynamics of the global political scenario during the last five years have not been highlighted at all in the political talk shows. There has been no coverage on the turmoil in the Middle East during the last five years. The Arab Spring phenomenon had a profound impact on Middle Eastern politics but was hardly discussed. A political movement that started from Tunisia and spread from end to end in the Middle Eastern belt was not analysed or scrutinised in depth. The rise of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and the civil war in Syria were not evaluated thoroughly in either the print or electronic media. No prominent journalist or news anchor did any field reporting on these important political developments. There was no substantive documentary on these global political developments on television. The issue of Yemen was discussed to some extent, just because Pakistan’s military assistance was demanded in that war, but there has not been any field reporting of the Yemen war by a Pakistani journalist. The media did play a positive role regarding this war; different dimensions of this issue were argued in the media and as a result, an effective decision was taken by parliament on this critical issue.
All these issues are closely linked to our national security and the media has an indispensable role to play in this regard. The media has the responsibility to take academia, researchers, politicians and civil society activists on board and discuss different aspects of national security policy and the role of Pakistan in the global political arena. Moreover, the media has to project the defence policy of the state to the world, just as the Indian media projects its government’s foreign and national security policy. Beyond that, the Indian media has always played a vital role in projecting Pakistan as a hub of ethnic and Islamic militancy at the global level. The Pakistani media, however, has never raised the issue of the enormous number of insurgencies in India or the massive human rights violations carried out by the orthodox Hindu extremists, with the backing of their law enforcement agencies and government.
Furthermore, we have witnessed biases from the western media on different political issues. The most recent example is the Charlie Hebdo incident. The western media condemned the militants who killed the staff members of that organisation, but no fair reporting had been done on the anti-Muslim riots that occurred after the killings. In order to ensure impartiality and objectivity, the western media should have highlighted the injustices that took place after the Charlie Hebdo incident along with the Paris Peace March. Our media could also have played an important role in this respect. We should have raised the point that just condemning one side of the picture is counterproductive; suppressing the militants without fixing your own house would further expand the phenomenon of radicalisation instead of eradicating it.
Presenting only one angle of a story is the main cause of the whole crisis. Projecting Boko Haram and IS as ruthless radicals cannot resolve the issue. We have to analyse the complete picture of the story holistically, because we are the leading victims of terrorism. The Pakistani media must explain that we should not expect good behaviour from these insurgents because they are non-state actors; we must question the legitimate entities, such as the US and NATO. Massive aerial strikes and the use of deadly weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan are causing immense civilian causalities and are the primary instigators of extremism. The installation of puppet regimes and the backing of civilian and military dictators in Muslim countries are the root cause of the expansion of radicalism.
Pakistan’s media has to take the lead in this regard. We have to fight for our own cause. The biased attitude of the western media is quite evident from the recent coverage of the holocaust of the Rohingyas. The ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Rohingya Muslims is not a priority for them. Nowadays, the western media does not seem to be interested in anything but the coverage of the US presidential campaign. They are not ready to make the mass extermination of the Rohingya Muslims a central focus. It is high time for Pakistani media to broaden its spectrum. It needs to expand its focus to the international political canvas. The government, media development organisations, civil society and the media should design a framework to transform our media groups into effective multinational media bodies.
The writer is a freelance columnist