Like many other Pakistanis, I have acquired an aversion to the TV screen altogether. Why, you might ask. Simply because there are enough things to stress about just living here than to switch on the harbinger of all doom and depression, really. When I was much younger, the entire country would look forward to the nightly news as that would be the only source of info on what’s going on.
These days the information provided to an average Pakistani has become such a diabolical overload that people just cannot take it anymore and have switched off. Consider this: up to 4 years ago when the media was still free there used to be around 3 news channels mainly Geo, Ary and PTV which the public would turn to in order to be informed. Talk shows were at that time very interesting as this was a new phenomenon and the "Free Media" exercised its rights to question the country’s politicians for the first time on national and local issues.
Currently there are somewhere between 10-12 news channels ranging from 5 big ones covering the nation to smaller ones covering local issues and so on, there is now an entire channel devoted to sport as well as a couple of channels devoted entirely to music. This is a direct result of the opportunity provided by the "Dictatorship" to our media which has seen tremendous growth in the field of journalism right? Wrong!!!
The indirect result of this boom has been that there are now producers who do not know what they are doing. News anchors read off cue cards (digitized teleprompts) and every Alam, Mir and Jawaid has been given their 15 minutes of fame via a spot on the national grid in a talk show. Suffice it to say that talk shows have become extremely boring and full of the same paid personalities in our political and social arena who revolve from one channel to the next. Yes there are people in
Imagine what would happen if you put an unsuspecting senator in a hot seat, the "truth" would come out!! That would be chaos no? Who needs that when you have round the clock "breaking news" and up to the second "hot updates" that are colder than my daughter likes her coleslaw.
The worst thing of all to have happened because of this passion for the killer story is yellow journalism and competition of the lowest category. Media houses are now so dependent and so vulnerable to the ratings war, for which there are no proper figures anyways, that they will resort to anything to get the next "Scoop" this often now includes making up or inventing this "Scoop". A simple example of this are statements which are quoted out of context or misquoted to give the viewers an impression which is totally separate from reality. For instance if I were to interview Mr Zardari and he would remark upon how lovely the Clifton shoreline in Karachi is, I then go and write up a talk show script alleging that Zardari is fed up of Islamabad and wants to move back to Bilwalal house which is on the seashore here.
Add to all this the astonishing fact that all figures are fudged from ratings, to awards to advertising to circulation to salaries to programming to strategies and what we have ladies and gentleman is rumor mongering and skull duggery of the highest order and this is the reality of Pakistani Media. No matter how "Free" and "Fair" they deem themselves to be.
So the next time you view a "Breaking news" or watch in horror as a talk show host predicts the breakup of our nation in three months, or extols the nightmare of Talib’s coming to get ya in the middle of the night, this night specifically--switch off the idiot box. Trust me, I think they named it after watching our Paki media channels.
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