Taking inspiration from Shyema Sajjad’s article on Dawn.com, I thought I should get my words out to the meager audience I receive here. Where Sajjad restrained himself from using names, I will not. Simply because it is not the media alone who preserves the right of ‘freedom of speech’ and degrading and defacing anyone and everyone publicly.
Freedom of speech: The proper definition is ‘the freedom to speak without censorship or limitation, or both’. Every person on the planet has a right to that. You believe in something or you just want to say something, you have the right to say it out loud. Now, just like you have the right to speak freely, everyone around you has a right to his privacy and choice.
You cannot just go around revealing people’s secrets needlessly and make them to listen, watch or believe something if they don’t want to. Unless you’re the parent, then that’s a different story. Anyways, freedom of speech is not absolute. Morals and ethics put a limit on it. And when you’re part of the media, morals and ethics tighten their grip on you. Contrary to how our media thinks.
Just like Sajjad said:
If I had just been killed in a horrible accident, my family would definitely want to see my belongings scattered next to my remains.
This is not a problem that has risen after the plane crash. It is not like the media did not know what to do after a plane crashed in to the mountains next to the capital of the country. This is something that the media has been proudly giving credit to itself for since the first suicide bomber attacked Pakistan. Just like bomb blasts became a norm in our lives, so did watching scattered body parts and of course the ‘head of the suicide bomber’.
The dog-race that the media has gotten itself into for delivering the breaking news the first is causing them to play with the nation’s emotions and as a result of that, our people are becoming cold hearted and they would not be bothered if a bomb blast killed tens of people only a few kilometers away from them.
The media representatives, cameramen and reporters all need to be trained and taught the ethics of coping with and covering a national tragedy. Showing torsos and limbs of the poor dead people on a news channel is unacceptable. Detailed coverage of a tragic event is something else. You don’t report there are 40 survivors and then pin it on government officials when they say that there aren’t any survivors. Yes, Geo TV you did just that.
The “extensive coverage” by Geo News ended on with things:
- The first female reporter on ground zero was shown bare footed walking with muddy trousers and feet and claiming that she covered every inch of the wreckage and all the rescue efforts. Thank you so very much miss ‘whatever your name was’ for no fucking thing. Since you and your cameraman were there, you might as well have helped around instead of standing there like idiots and telling people ‘look here is a broken make-up kit of a crash victim’.
Oh, I almost forgot… Special thanks to all the TV channels present there for blocking one lane of the two laned road that leads to near the crash site. Couldn’t have done it without you.
- The government announced that the families of the dead should return at 9 AM (next morning) for DNA tests so the unrecognizable bodies can be handed over to them. 9 AM. Next morning. DNA test. Right! But when will they hand the bodies over to the families? The government did not say that for sure. Yes, they didn’t. But if the Geo TV anchors and their reporter at the hospital had the tiniest bit of common sense they would’ve known that they did say when they will hand over the bodies.
Instead of repeating the 9 AM announcement, Geo TV anchors (namely Dumb Fuck Guy and Dumb Fuck Girl) went on blabbing that the government is not announcing the time when the bodies will be handed over to the families. Twice.
- BONUS: After watching this, I thought I would switch over to PTV News and see what they are saying.
The first news was: Bait-ul-Maal of Pakistan has set-up a mosque for the loved ones of the victims where they will get food and a place to spend the night.
The second news: Apart from the two regular flights that brought families from Karachi, PIA arranged a special flights to bring 107 people from Karachi to Islamabad just for the plane crash victims’ families. Not just that, the 107 people were transported to a hotel in Islamabad to which they were ensured booking before they left Karachi.
I switched back to the painfully depressing Geo TV with a black-and-white logo and they had moved on to their beloved Ufone adverts and of course the ‘Chotay Ustad’ crap.
I asked around from a few people whom I thought might be glued to the TV following the tragic event. From those who were following it some of them said they didn’t knew about it, the rest said that they saw it on PTV as well. Made me wonder, what is Geo News up to? Why aren’t they reporting that the government’s departments are actually trying to help? Why do they always, always make the government out to be cold-hearted monsters and not human? Are they really that bad? Or have we just been brain washed into believing that?
I mean, we’re so much into ourselves and we’re so much against each other that we have completely ignored what the British Prime Minister said about Pakistan! Yes, go on, search the internet for what he said. Or wait let me give you the links: Cameron calls out Pakistan and he also said We won’t tolerate ‘export of terror’ by Pakistan (David Cameron is the current PM of England, not James Cameron). I mean sure, why don’t you take the war on terror to your country and then we’ll see who’s exporting terror, you moron.
Getting back to the point: the Pakistani media’s antics. They have ruined us as a nation. We have actually let them ruin us. Thanks to Pervez Musharraf, the media was given a free hand to do and say anything and show it to the world. Not once do I remember that they tried to help improve the image of Pakistan.
They claim to be seen throughout the world but if you really look at it, all they show on TV is the bomb blasts, the politicians back-biting people or sucking up to people, allegations, conspiracies, etc. It’s easy for you to ignore if you’re living in Pakistan because then you would know what the reality is. But if you’re not in Pakistan and that is all the Pakistani media talks about, imagine what would anyone think about Pakistan… A nuclear power on the brink of destabilization with their next door neighbors are the people who allegedly attempted 9/11 and their other neighbors are either illegally occupying land or is Iran.
Where will the nukes go? Surely, it will be quite a feat to take them to China through the dodgy Karakorum Highway and with the unpredictable landslides.
Our media – that claims to be our representative but somehow ends up promoting the people that we’ve been at war with four times – has done nothing to help us. Nothing at all. They have only made matters worse for us and that’s all they have been good for. They have successfully demoralized what once was a cheerful and lively Pakistani nation.
I publicly announce today and I am very fiercely against the kind of freedom given to the media. The government needs to act and put an end to this disgrace to the nation. The media has become a pest! The organizations need to become institutions and they need to hold proper training sessions for the employees before they hand them a camera, a microphone and a press pass. Media reps need to trained and taught the ethics of reporting.
This is where the government needs to jump in: enforce these laws and the failure to do so should result in bans and hefty fines. Fines should be hefty enough that they shake up the whole organization so badly that it takes them the same turmoil to recover as it caused to the nation. Because the lens of the camera does not only give you power, but it also gives you immense responsibility which our current media is not living up to.
- Rumor: One of the major shareholder of the Geo TV (or the Independent Media Corporation, Geo is its subsidiary) is an Indian. If there’s any truth to it, an Indian shareholder of a TV channel that presents itself as a true representative of Pakistan which also happens to promote Indian movies and actors and TV shows and award shows quite regularly and openly… interesting.
- Fact: The Federal Board of Revenue of Pakistan has raised tax demands against the Independent Media Corporation (Pvt.) Ltd. (again to which Geo TV is a subsidiary), totaling to 1.68 billion rupees. When failing to pay, the Deputy Commissioner, Inland Revenue, FBR, proceeded to arrest Geo TV directors. However, Sindh High Court granted a stay order against this move on the appeal of the directors. How convenient? The mother company of Geo TV is a tax defaulter and not just any tax defaulter, a 1.68 billion rupees tax defaulter!