It all started with the emergence of government sanctioned private channels in the early 2000s. The then president General (Retd) Pervez Musharraf in his role of the saviour of Pakistan’s solidarity and stability decided to allow media houses to come into existence, letting Pakistan have a voice that was beyond the unilateral (mono)tone of the state-run Pakistan Television. The intention could have been any, but the product that came to fore had the potential to change the face of dispensation of news, presentation of analyses and debates, and addressing of relevant and important issues–local, national, regional and international. The arrival of 24-hour channels, with minimum state interference and censorship, was an exciting and a promising phenomenon that gave the audience a glimpse into how a global format of presentation of news and information was at the tip of their fingers. It all went wrong, very soon, very noisily.
When did news television in Pakistan become a medium of anything but news is a question that has no simple answer. The uneasy union of the corporate and the journalist gave birth to a new reality in which the business interests of the owner/s were in a constant tug of war with journalistic ethics of those who had experience of years of print journalism and working under a tight deadline, abysmal conditions, state censorship and a tighter budget. With private channels and introduction of huge salary packages, Pakistan saw the metamorphosis of a good journalist into that behemoth who had more power than he/she knew what to do with: anchor or presenter or anchorperson. And the rest as they say is convoluting of a noble medium into something that became dark, ominous, and too powerful for its own good.
Seated in front of a camera, and speaking in a microphone, both connected to a satellite system that had the power to reach millions of people in the country and around the world, there was much to be said, heard, debated and analysed to satiate people’s need to be hourly updated and constantly informed about the doings of politicians and elected leaders. Until it all turned into something much more than that.
Much good has been done through television. Issues that matter, lives that have to be saved, narratives that change the collective conscience of the nation, discourses that highlight the ills and demand solutions, courage to go beyond the invisible red line that decides how much is to be said and how, Pakistani channels through their many anchors have managed to do a great deal that is noble and admirable. But over the years, that has been an exception not the norm.
Hard to accept but true.
Television has become an everyday platform that is not limited to presentation of news and analyses of what has actually happened. Television is used, by many if not all, to present a certain point of view while holding tight to the façade of giving all sides a chance to speak and debate. It is about the inclination of the owner/s of a media house toward a certain narrative or a political party or a group of people, and a covert or a blatant agenda. It is about the few anchors whose voice–irrespective of the presence or absence of journalistic integrity–is credible to millions of viewers. It is about ratings. It is about establishment of a narrative, and exploiting the medium of television to push that narrative.
Hard to accept but true. *