Zaair Hussain’s column in Daily Times today is an excellent explanation of why it is so important that we, the citizens, keep a check on the media and do not allow it to become like a dictator in its own right. We talk about accountability for government officials, politicians, and police – but rarely do we ask for accountability from our journalists.
For example, why is it that a journalist like Shaheen Sehbai can continually make wrong predictions, and still he continues? Or that Ahmed Quraishi can say the most wild conspiracy theories over and over again with no consequences?
This is not to say that there should be some laws against free speech. Quite the contrary. But what it does mean is that, if we are going to have a press that is both free and fair, we the citizens will have to keep our eyes on them to hold them to standards of professionalism – especially if they will not do it themselves.
As our most recent military dictatorship melted away before the bright glare of overwhelming public pressure, two heroes — equal parts martyrs and warriors — were left standing hand in hand above the settling dust, bowing to our uproarious applause. The judiciary and the media came to represent the courage of the people against tyranny.
And so it came to pass that private broadcast media in Pakistan was no longer a child, to be seen and not heard. Its shoulders were broader, its voice deeper, the set of its jaw commanding. To silence it now would take more than a gesture, more than a sharp word; it had become, in a word, formidable.
Its power is awesome, its responsibility terrifying. No medium comes close to the visceral impact, the emotional connection of television. It is a breed removed from its older, quieter, cautious cousin, the newspaper. It is breathtakingly alive. It is in our living rooms, our offices and our coffee shops, never further away than the twitch of a finger. It bleeds into our casual conversations, our collective conscious and unconscious, our mental map of the world.
Soundbytes burrow into our minds, piercing deeper than any earworm jingle. Images embed themselves in our hearts long after our minds forget their context.
In this new epoch of media power, a dilemma appears: the dichotomy of public and private media. I would never advocate sliding back into the days of state-monopolised press. We (the people, not just the media) have struggled mightily against censorship and blackouts. Terrible crimes are committed in the darkness.
But the only alternative, private media, is beholden to profit and spectacular one-upmanship, particularly as our industry is passing through the exciting, wondrous, painful throes of puberty.
Pakistani mass media is now a dangerously powerful adolescent. It has its growing pains, its awkwardness, its susceptibility to bad examples. It has fits of anger, and an overriding desire to be accepted, to be liked, to be popular. Its potential is magnificent, but like any adolescent, it errs.
Channels heap dislike upon the despised and laurels upon the popular. They follow each other’s trends, even as they duel one another in spectacular sensationalism.
When the media lends its voice to one side and not the other, they become more than observers and reporters. The power to shape and focus the collective will, the power of propaganda (literally, to propagate a viewpoint) will crush most opponents. It is a fearsome weapon and invaluable in, say, fighting terrorism. But to turn it on legitimate politicians or parties is to subvert the very ideals of democracy that the media should protect.
It has become common practice to air accusations as truth without presenting proof (how many times has the ghastly spectre of “a foreign hand” been conjured without details?) and to repeat endlessly a spectacular image or soundbyte without context. To cut out a piece of the truth, with jagged blade and heavy hand, is to mutilate it, often worse than outright falsehood.
Political talk shows now arrest the attention of millions of households. They serve less as debates and more as political and public arenas. Thousands of years ago, arenas were venues where blood was spilled for the entertainment of a crowd that paid to become a mob. The blood has become metaphorical and a virtual arena seats millions, but little has fundamentally changed.
When private pictures of television anchors are released to the public, it is a shameful invasion. But it is merely an extension of the Schadenfreude that the media has helped foster. Part of the task of free media is to shine a light on shadowy dealings. But to delight in shame is a terrible instinct, and must not be fed.
All this amounts to more than lacklustre journalism. It actively hurts us. It turns us into a people attracted to storms, to thunder and lightning, to uproarious sound and naked fury with no real substance. It makes us delight in public shaming and humiliation, rather than true accountability. The truth is lost in the tussle, and we do not notice.
No freedom can be absolute. When we attack the speakers instead of the speech, invade the private lives of the family of a public personality or give airtime to hate speech because spectacle sells, we must remember that for true freedom, one man’s liberty must end where another’s begins.
We all err, and we cannot fairly expect otherwise from the media. Mistakes will be made. But to deliberately air hate speech or misinformation or groundless xenophobia is to sell the national interest for profit.
The greatest dangers of the exploding industry are we, the consumers. We are not a media-jaded culture. We think of the media as we think of the moon: an insentient satellite that watches over us, reflecting the infinite light of wisdom and truth so that we may gaze into it. But where the moon is incapable of infidelity and has capacity for neither fear nor favour, the media is a man-made entity, created and maintained by human beings. It is prone to human greatness and human greed, our passions and our prejudices, our courage and our cowardice, our marvellous wonders and our malicious whimsies.
Their power is not limited to reflecting the public will; they can mould it, shape it, focus it for good or ill.
Make no mistake, a watchdog media is an indispensible democratic institution, and its robust growth is amongst the greatest silver linings in Pakistan’s blackening cloud. But who watches our watchmen? What check can there be upon a young and powerful institution that we cannot shackle without maiming ourselves? Only we, the people.
We must be patient, but vigilant. We must never oppose the freedom of the media. We must evolve as consumers. If we change the market, the industry must change to survive.
We must recognise that the media does not and cannot pass down universal truths from on high to be accepted uncritically. We do not expect perfection from our politicians, Lord knows, and we cannot expect it from our media. But we can guide them into being all that they can be.
The guardians of our truth, and of our liberty.
PDF Tags: accountability, Ahmed Quraishi, Daily Times, Shaheen Sehbai, Shireen Mazari, Zaair Hussain