Dilemmas facing the print media in Pakistan

BY M Reddy| IN Media Practice | 02/02/2004

Muralidhar Reddy in Islamabad

Journalists of Pakistan face one of the acute dilemmas since 1971, when the country researched works have shown, scribes were kept completely in the dark about realities experienced division resulting in birth of Bangladesh. As numerous studies and in East Pakistan and were faithfully recording the official version on the glorious victories of their armed forces in the Eastern half of the country..

Ironically what is happening today is completely different. They know what is happening but have little clue to the dynamics if not the rationale behind the policy shifts. They are forced to rewrite what they had defended as unalterable and in the supreme interests of the country till the other day. That is, an investment of 25 years in Afghanistan in the name of strategic depth; joining hands with America to contain the evil communists (today US is perceived as the main adversary of Islam and Pak); justification of  Jehad as an instrument of foreign and defence policy; Kashmir, and the glorification of n-bomb scientists as nationalists and heroes of the Muslim word only to damn them now. Alas all in the name of supreme national interest.

 It must be a very, very painful experience for conscientious journalists, and there is no dearth of them, who have stuck their neck out and rubbed the state on the wrong side by pointing out the pitfalls of the short-sighted policies with disastrous consequences for the society at large. More so because even at best of times, media freedoms in Pakistan have always been far less than desirable. Journalists in the country have to work within pressures, restrictive boundaries of semi-coercive laws and far-from-perfect working conditions.

A little backdrop of the print media scene in Pakistan would help better appreciate the plight of journalists. Journalism is one of the lowest paid professions in the country. In the mainstream media salaries range from Pak Rs. 8000 to Rs. 45,000 (One Indian rupee fetches 1.20 Pak rupees and a dollar could command Pak. Rupees 57.30). Only the established papers pay and pay on time. Most of the smaller papers and magazines expect journalists to live on love of the profession and the ubiquitous identity card provided, as is the case with several small papers in India.

The economics and popularity of print media in Pakistan perhaps calls for a doctoral thesis. It is doubtful if there is an equivalent of it any where in the world. For a country of 140 million people, the total circulation of all dailies put together is supposed to be just about a million copies! Of course that does not include periodicals and other journals.

In a country where over 43 per cent of the people are literate according to the last census held in 1998, how come only a million people buy newspapers? Part of the problem perhaps lies in the pricing. The minimum price of a daily is Pak. Rs. 7 and it goes up to Rs. 12. The average price is Rs. 10. In a country where the minimum wage is Rs. 1800 and the average monthly wage of a person employed in the urban sector is over Rs. 3000, who could afford to spend Rs. 350 on a newspaper?

Argument of owners in the print media is that with little advertising support and excessive dependence on imported newsprint, they have little option but to keep the tariffs high. However there are few takers for the argument. The newly emerging private electronic media in the country has demonstrated that media products could be packaged in such a way that they are within the reach of the masses.

One explanation for the situation could be the `feudal` character and outlook of the class that controls the print media in the country. Barring one media group, Friday Times and Daily Times, most of the big banners in the country are vintage variety. The Jang group, Dawn, the Nawai-waqt/Nation, . these are the main papers which date back either to pre-independence or a few years after birth of Pakistan. They have faced little or no competition. In fact the condition must have suited successive ruling establishments dominated by feudal, bureaucratic and military oligarchy since birth of Pakistan.

In fact the joke among social and political scientists of the country that the high pricing of media products is a conspiracy by the ruling elite to keep the `masses perpetually in chains`. There are of course magazines like Herald run by the Dawn group and Newsline, a cooperative of journalists (both monthlies), which have demonstrated extraordinary courage and carried some brilliant investigative reports. Alas their reach is very limited and tariffs exorbitant. Each of the magazines cost Pak Rs. 70 plus!

Most of the Pakistani papers just do not want to invest on newsgathering. As a result reports hardly get opportunities to travel within the country leave alone going abroad. The lucky that manage to travel have to hitch on the non-governmental organisations bandwagon and the few government sponsored trips. As a result journalists get limited opportunities to journey for a first hand knowledge of the ground realities.

This is in no way to belittle the efforts and convictions of Pakistani journalists who have fought valiantly against all brands of military and democratic dictators. As an international report puts it "despite this, the tenacity and pluck of Pakistani journalists in an atmosphere of political instability and in the face of unfriendly governments deserves appreciation. Even in non-conducive conditions, they have continuously managed to exercise courage and in general managed to stay true to their calling".

Returning to the present times, Pakistani scribes have faced a peculiar dilemma since 9/11 when the establishment had little option but to do a u-turn on Afghanistan. For the media it is the pendulum swinging the other way. After all it was the jehad against the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1979 that dominated the political and foreign policy discourse in the country till the twin towers were brought down.

Several journalists in the print media in their individual capacity as well as representatives of their respective papers had warned against the disastrous consequences of embracing jehad and jehadis. Their voices were drowned in the wilderness. The rest were echoing the views of the state. So when the shift came, it was bolt from the blue.

Alas the state was not prepared to go the whole hog. It was done in pieces. In fact it is still being done. As most of the media began adjusting their lenses to the changed situation in Afghanistan came the clampdown on the domestic `jehadis and jehadi outfits` in the wake of the December 13 Indian Parliament attack. Signals from the establishment were confusing and mixed as to how far it was willing to go and it was reflected in much of the media till the April 2003 so-called peace initiative of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

What followed in the weeks and months after that have been harrowing for the Pakistani press. For exactly a month after India proposed Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus link, Pakistan made out that it would settle for nothing less than United Nations jurisdiction and supervision on the operation to ensure sanctity of the Line of Control (LoC). Than came the volte face from none other than the Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali. The section of the press which espoused the traditional stance of Pakistan on Kashmir must have experienced an earth quake when the President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf in the course of an interview to an international wire agency declared that Islamabad has for the time being set aside the UN resolutions on Kashmir. No explanations have been offered for the change in position.

The case involving the nuclear scientists accused of having illegally transferred technology to Iran and Libya perhaps takes the cake. From November, when it first surfaced, Pakistan kept insisting that it was no more than a routine `de-briefing` only to announce out of the blue that one or two its scientists could be part of a `hydra-headed nuclear underground mafia`. It would have been all right if they were any other scientists. Unfortunately the suspicion is on Dr. A.Q. Khan, considered to be the father of Pakistan`s nuclear bomb.

A day before Dr. Khan was stripped of his job as Advisor to Prime Minister a leading Pakistan daily ran a front page report quoting the Interior Minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat that the national hero was not a suspect in the case. Of course next day the Ministry put out a vague clarification that the Minister has been `quoted out of context`.

For several days before Dr. Khan was sacked a few Pakistani journalists who write for American papers were quoting unnamed officials about complicity of the top scientist. Here is the anguish of Mr. Khalid Hasan, a distinguished Pakistani journalist based in Washington,  on the whole episode.

"The savaging of Pakistan in newspapers across the United States that was beginning to ebb, gained fresh life with, first the President`s CNN interview to Ms Christian Amanpour (who always reminds me of a younger Begum Nusrat Bhutto) and then story after story from the well-wired Pakistani stringer of the Washington Post. He it was who first named Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, both in his own newspaper in Pakistan and the one that he strings for here, as the man who had passed on nuclear materials and know-how to Libya, Iran and perhaps North Korea for no reason higher than money. He also wrote about Dr Khan`s vast interests in business and real estate holdings. There is a phrase in English, which says it all: cutting one`s nose to spite one`s face.

As the storm raged around Pakistan`s alleged nuclear waywardness and the risk such irresponsible conduct posed to the West, I asked one of this town`s leading Pakistan `experts` what the endgame was. "Will Pakistan, if found guilty as charged, be hanged by the neck by the next tree or will it be let off just for the last time with the direst of warnings?" I wanted to know. He did not disagree that this entire `nuclear-secrets-sold` business was part of a well-planned and deftly executed campaign.

How is it possible for every major newspaper in this country to run the same story over and over again? It is unprofessional but it makes perfect sense if the purpose is to bludgeon the country into doing what the big and mighty lords of the world think it should do. "Repeat the medicine till the patient is dead," could be a good slogan for the Pakistan-bashing that has gone on here for the last several weeks".