A Twist in the Plot – Our Mindless Media

Our media tries to impose its own opinion, and conveniently hides both sides of the story. Several incidents can be mentioned as examples, where our channels chose not to expose the actual truth behind the white lies. Particularly, incidents involving the Rangers and the Army personnels are immediately aired on the news as exclusives, not to mention, with expert one-sided opinions solely meant to bash them. On the other hand, peaceful protests and demonstrations by religious organizations never qualify for a mention on the news desk. Earlier this year, hundreds of Madrassah students joined a silent sit-in at the D-Chowk, Islamabad, in protest against the killings of prominent Muslim scholars. They sat there for several days and recited the Qur’an, but our media was too busy covering other preferably more important news, about a Bollywood star no longer among us.

And when a trauma strikes, trust these vultures to be at your doorstep to share your grief (on their channels exclusively). When the young man, Owais Baig, fell to his death from a burning building, our media reporters invaded his house and shoved their cameras into his grieving mother’s face. She had to beg them to leave her alone and to stop airing the footage of her son falling from the building. They left her alone, for sure, but did they stop showing that clip on the TV? No, they did not; as long as it got them viewers, it was worth it. This utter lack of sensitivity for the grief of a mother is enough to open our eyes to their gruesome, ugly face.

There was a time, long ago, when we had only two TV channels available. They broadcasted quality programs and news. Spicy, out of question, gory stuff was limited to Rs. 1 newspapers that we barely ever came across. There was peace of mind, and that was not due to ignorance, but a tad bit of diplomacy. PTV has been long known for its slightly jingoistic approach, and is repeatedly criticized for hiding important news and adapting a rather hesitant and discrete mode as compared to the several other channels that are commonly watched today. While I do not disagree with these criticisms, I am left baffled with what is instead shown to the viewers on these other channels that have taken the “freedom of media expression” in a fairly wrong way.

In 2005, when the earthquakes hit Pakistan, PTV ran a life-line which efficiently covered the whole country and played a major part in locating the lost people from the areas of destruction. I cannot, for once, imagine such a role to be played by the current media. If disaster of such intensity struck today, they would jump at it like ravens, crying about their exclusive coverage and digging out utterly irrelevant stories. And then, it would be news that would last not more than a few weeks, as this trauma would be left to die, just like several other events that needed our constant attention but could not be accounted for. It would be reduced to a mention in the night news, along with less important reports such as inaugurations of lady health clinics and seminars on mangoes and oranges.

I do not claim that the present situation in our country is not worrisome; it is, but the role played by our media to help improve it is absolutely negligible. They believe in painting the most brutal and ignorant picture of the people of Pakistan, through news of a man mutilating graves to a woman cutting her husband into pieces. They believe this type of news attracts viewers and, rightly so, they have left us suspended in a circus with peculiar shows on our TV screens. Today, our kids have adopted Hindi words in their conversation, including curses that are common, disregarding respect and ethics. Tragically, the same country responsible for financing terror within our homeland is looked up to by our illiterate masses. And the Army that defends our borders from its menace is day by day criticized and shown as the actual enemy. Those who cry for lack of education among the masses are ironically the ones who do the least to cover it up. The elite squander money on fashion shows while the poor are left to deal with their drags.

With perceptions of open-mindedness and a display of liberation that has only educated our kids with cuss words and fashion statements, the channels today continue to destroy the minds of our people with a bee-buzz that is best kept shut. I am sorry, but with the sour taste left in my mouth after watching pasted smiles and fake crocodile tears, and questions that scratch the wounds of a person in sorrow, and words that fan the flames between sects and ethnicities and throw dashes of salt over the wounds of the mothers of the martyrs of the Pak Army – I do not feel our media even deserves this form of freedom of expression. In all honesty, I would rather have them chained and subjected to a typical episode of the Kamran Khan show on auto repeat for a whole day so they would realize the torture they cause the masses every other day.

We are left with two solutions to this hideous problem. The first is in the form of a monitoring body that sets standards for the media and keeps a watch over what is aired. The second solution is tough and potentially problematic but known to work. Viewer stats play a major role in what the media decides to show us. Once we agree that our media is just a wake of vultures, hungry for money, we should be prudent about what we decide to watch. We should boycott all sorts of piffle ranging from stupid dramas of domestic nonsense to vulgar ads and, not to mention, misguiding religious shows. Is it so hard to switch off the TV? It is upon us to boycott this useless junk of Bollywood claptrap and pseudo-liberal gibberish, and understand that this has only caused our wall of unity to collapse.
It is upon us to take this vital step while we still have the time. We need to sense the menace that is creeping within our roots and flagging our base. Just a decade ago, we were not in as bad a turmoil as we are in now, and that should speak volumes for the intensity of damage that these foreign funded media channels have done.