Babar Ayaz believes it is. I don’t know that I am convinced quite yet that the Press Council of Pakistan Ordinance is the solution to the problem of media ethics. But I am certainly convinced that something needs to be done. Pakistan’s media is finally free – but it still fails too often to be fair and factual. With this mindset, Babar Ayaz raises the question that anyone who reads this blog (or any blog or news website that is critical of media) has been asking for years: If media is bold enough to criticise government, why can’t it conduct a little self-criticism.
Archive for June, 2010
Is it time for Press Council?
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010Is Shaheen Sehbai reporting the news, or trying to manipulate it?
Monday, June 28th, 2010Shaheen Sehbai’s article in The News today crosses the line from reporting to attempting to influence the public perception of current events. I would not even call this analysis, as mostly it is Shaheen Sehbai making statements without any evidence or sources. I suppose this should come as no surpise after Imran Aslam, president of International Media Corp which owns the Jang Group, admitted that they use anti-government bias to boost their ad revenue. But when are we going to at least require some facts and evidence before allowing all such rumours and biases to be published as if they were facts?
The ridiculousness of Shaheen Sehbai’s latest article is immediately apparent from the title alone. Because he does not make a point that is easily turned into a headline, the editors at The News ended up stringing together a series of statements. At 38 words long one cannot help but laugh.
The politics of Raiwind and the Mian brothers; Sharifs fear mly intervention if they go all out against Zardari; sticking to principles may cost them Punjab govt; with Zardari on the rampage, will the Army be sucked in?
The headline is so ridiculous that it even necessitated shortening words like ‘military’ and ‘government’ to make it fit! Actually, though, the ranting style of the title is perhaps a perfect way to introduce the incoherent rambling that follows.
But let’s take a look at the meat of the matter and decide whether or not Shaheen Sehbai is actually reporting or just making stuff up.
Shaheen Sehbai for the PML-N
Shaheen Sehbai right out of the gate sounds like an official spokesman for PML-N. He claims that the Sharif brothers are caught in a ‘Catch-22′ because they are faced with wanting to maintain order to avoid a military coup while also wanting to stand by their ‘principles’ in opposing the present government. Consider how this is framed by Sehbai:
Their dilemma is complex and not an easy one to resolve. If they go all out against Zardari, they think the military camel will again get the chance to put its neck in the political tent, ultimately driving out the genuine residents into a hot desert sun.
If they do not stop Zardari & Co from the massive plundering of state institutions and misuse of political authority, they run the risk of being left out and have to face the genuine criticism of being the friendly opposition, with the PPP running away with everything.
Shaheen Sehbai refers to the ‘Mian brothers of Raiwind’ but I almost expected him to start calling them the ‘Farishtein brothers’ or maybe just ‘the Angels of Punjab’. How else can one describe it when Nawaz Sharif is described as having “confined himself into such a cocoon of self-righteousness that he has ignored the pressing needs and absolutely essential political maneuvers that he must have already made to keep his party in power”. Suddenly Nawaz Sharif is a dervish, whirling away the days while the evil mastermind is plotting and scheming from Zardari house.
I will not list the controversies that surround the Sharif brothers. Certainly, they are no angels. But who in politics is a perfect angel? Or has Shaheen Sehbai challenging Ahsan Iqbal as the new PML-N Secretary of Information?
Meanwhile, while he praises the purity of the ‘Angels of Punjab’, Shaheen Sehbai has no problem throwing accusations of the worst sort against the nation’s president. What, for example, does Sehbai mean by “the massive plundering of state institutions and misuse of political authority”? Certainly a writer with the years of experience that Shaheen Sehbai has knows better than to make such accusations with no facts or evidence. If he has some facts about plundering or abuse of authority, please write about those incidents specifically so they may be brought to light. But to simply make serious accusations without being able to point to some specific incident is not reporting, it is only slander.
Shaheen Sehbai Looking Into the Future
And Shaheen Sehbai does not stop there. He goes on to accuse Zardari of plotting to withdraw the 17 March 2009 Executive Order which restored the judges. Again, where is the evidence for such a serious claim? Is Shaheen Sehbai’s crystal ball telling him some magical rumours again? Later in his column Sehbai drops even any pretense of honesty and, instead of pretending there is a rumour about withdrawing an Executive Order, he claims that the government is “threatening to withdraw their Executive order and throw them on the street by Rehman Malik’s executive power”. Who has been threatening? Who has done this alleged act? Or can Shaheen Sehbai not even remember his storyline from a few paragraphs before? First it comes from his crystal ball, then it becomes a threat of Rehman Malik? This is not journalism, this is simply fiction writing.
What is worst, though, is when Shaheen Sehbai tries himself to instigate a military coup. What else could he be attempting when he writes lines like, “the PPP is not worried about any military intervention as privately Zardari and the main PPP stalwarts boast that they have used the Sindh Card in such a way the Army will never dare to touch them again”. Are these ‘PPP stalwarts’ boasting privately to Shaheen Sehbai that the party dares challenge the military? Or his he, perhaps, simply making it up?
Of course, this is nothing new to Shaheen Sehbai who has long tried to instigate the military and government to go to war with each other. For Shaheen Sehbai, they are all just carrom men for his own game playing.
Judge Jury and Executioner
Unfortunately, playing political games in the media can have real consequences. We are not all wooden pieces in a parlour game, we are actual people. When so-called journalists like Shaheen Sehbai write these political diatribes that they masquerade as ‘news media’, they can have a dastardly influence on real events.
Jawed Naqvi, writing for Dawn today, tells the story of a media frenzy in India that may result in a man’s death. The man in this case is Afzul Guru, convicted for having some part in the attack on Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001. Though his conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2004, his execution has been postponed while the government hears a petition for clemency due to questions of whether or not he received a fair trail. But here is where things get problamatic.
A notable aspect of the Supreme Court’s judgement centred on its conclusion that the death sentence on Guru was expected to placate “the collective conscience of society”. Now there is only one way in which the collective conscience of the society can be divined without a referendum or an election. It is through the media. The Express evidently is among the chief keepers of the public conscience. Another as it turned out was the NDTV news channel.
Just a few weeks ago NDTV was airing the views of “we the people” who were adamant demanding the public hanging of Guru and Mumbai attack convict Ajmal Kasab. Some wanted their eyes to pop out of the sockets, others pleaded that a jail sentence would better ensure that the recipients went mad with their suffering. As soon as the mercy petition was filed for Guru, NDTV immediately aired his confessional interview. The interview was rejected by the Supreme Court as material evidence. But the keepers of India’s collective conscience – its media – continued to use it to mobilise public opinion against Guru’s mercy plea. Human rights activists saw it as an attempt to influence the Presidential pardon adversely.
Now consider the following passage from Shaheen Sehbai’s column:
Another key confusion which refuses to go away is the perceived threat in the minds of the Sharifs, or Nawaz Sharif in particular, about the threat of military intervention. The Army has walked away from politics and Zardari has realized and capitalized on this, at least so far. He has taken positions which otherwise would have been difficult but he is now confident he can handle the Army. Nawaz Sharif is not so confident, but why?
The answer to this question is simple. Nawaz thinks he would be the one to lose more if a situation was created in which the Army walks back in. But with this fear in mind, he has stopped even playing the normal role an opposition should play. The massive loot and plunder and the spate of stories of corruption, misuse of authority, wastage of funds etc is all going by default with no one to challenge it effectively either in parliament or on the streets. Press conferences and TV interviews cannot stop this rot and this has not yet been understood by Nawaz Sharif.
The Army-PML-N relations and any misunderstandings if they had, should have been cleared when Shahbaz Sharif and Ch Nisar Ali Khan met the Army chief openly, and secretly, several times. Why has that not happened is a mystery but the Sharifs have to realise that the way Zardari is on the rampage, he will ultimately suck the Army in, whether the Sharifs like it or not. So why not check Zardari politically before he makes it impossible and the only way then left is through an outside intervention.
How can this be read as anything but a dangerous attempt to influence both the PML-N to force a coup d’etat?
The Devil in the Detail
And this is where the truth finally comes out. Shaheen Sehbai tells what his true intentions are in the closing paragraphs.
The answer to all this PML-N confusion and dilemma is for Nawaz Sharif to come out of his cocoon, stop worrying about the Army intervention, stand strongly behind the judges and the judiciary, a free media and confront the government by political moves and hard criticism where needed.
The political moves must include forgetting the Charter of Democracy for the moment as it is already irrelevant in the present context, throw the PPP out of his coalition in the Punjab by getting the PML-Q people back through a face-saving formula, giving them importance and attracting others, re-arranging the decks in the NA by forming alliances and mending fences with MQM, ANP and JUI and doing the political act of throwing out the PPP through the democratic process.
It is hard for me to demand that the Charter of Democracy should be buried, as I am one of its initiators, but when signatories do not adhere to the agreements, it becomes redundant by itself. The Sharif brothers must wake up before Zardari and Associates who are claiming that 2013 will the year the PPP will sweep the Punjab, becomes a reality.
Even his ‘Angel’ Nawaz Sharif is merely a carrom man for Shaheen Sehbai’s strategy to instigate a coup d’etat and throw the Charter of Democracy in the dustbin. He would like Nawaz to play his role in the game quickly, though. For Shaheen Sehbai fears that in the 2013 elections, Punjab voters might elect PPP. I suppose this is just too much democracy for Shaheen Sehbai when voters elect the wrong party!
Shaheen Sehbai doesn’t have to be pro-democracy. He can even be pro-coup if he really wants to. This is a democracy and he has the freedom to believe what he wants and vote how he wants. That is his right. But making up stories and using his privileges as a Jang employee in an attempt to manipulate events is both unethical and irresponsible. That’s not journalism, it’s just propaganda. Please, stick to real journalism and stop playing games with people’s lives.
Anti-Government Rhetoric Cynical Ploy For Ratings Boost
Saturday, June 26th, 2010Watching TV news and talk shows or reading newspapers and blogs by media corporations, it’s not difficult to answer the question of what all these self-proclaimed ‘experts’ are against. They are against the government, they are against the US, but mostly they are against Zardari. The fevered pitch with which the chorus of anchors chants their anti-Zardari talking points seems puzzling at times. But why should it? Criticising someone is a great way to boost ratings. And since these anchors are never held to account for their own actions, they have nothing to lose. This phenomenon – our own media anchors criticising Zardari in a cynical ploy to to boost ratings - is beginning to be noticed around the world.
“They gossip and take hearsay from the streets onto the TV screens,” says Owais Tohid, a journalist and former director of English-language news at Geo, which has a 24-hour news channel and three other channels. “I know how desperate they become when owners ask them to improve their ratings.”
Pakistan’s television industry is doing well despite the nation’s shaky economic picture. Foreign investment is in the doldrums and Pakistan is reliant on International Monetary Fund loans due to a weak government fiscal position. But sectors of the economy that sell consumer goods to the nation’s growing middle class have expanded in recent years, and TV is benefiting.
Annual TV ad sales jumped 20% last year to $174 million, after rising 13% in 2008.
There are almost 100 satellite and cable channels in Pakistan today, some in English but most in the local Urdu language, covering news, entertainment, fashion and sports and reaching a third of the country’s 175 million people. Scores of TV channels have been created in recent years, boosting free speech and spurring social debate.
There is big money to be made in criticism of the government. US$174 Million is over Rs 14 BILLION. Do you believe that this is coincidence only and nobody has noticed? Certainly they have.
Mr. Aslam acknowledges some anchors go too far. He says that those who take extreme Islamist or nationalist stances have seen their ratings drop; but those with antigovernment slants are popular.
And these anti-government rants have a massive influence on public opinion.
President Zardari’s approval ratings have dropped sharply amid perceptions of his closeness to the U.S., which is unpopular among many Pakistanis.
In a poll published in August, the Washington-based Pew Research Center found 32% of those asked had a favorable view of Mr. Zardari, down from 64% in 2008. Meanwhile, 77% said the growing news media was having a positive effect on the country.
This is why it is so important that the media acts responsibly and does not try to influence the courts or other institutions.
Imran Aslam who is the president of Karachi-based International Media Corp., which owns Geo Television and the Jang Group, says that, “You have to hold these people accountable. The opposition’s not doing it.” Imran has the right idea, but he is going about it the wrong way.
Holding businesses and politicians accountable is a key role of a properly functioning media. But there is a difference between holding people accountable and spreading rumour and innuendo that proves nothing but only drags people down.
Imran Aslam says that he must attack Zardari for corruption because he was never convicted. But isn’t the real answer that if he has some evidence of corruption he should take it to the courts? Instead, what we see are outrageous accusations made constantly with a complete lack of evidence. The News is becoming as bad as The Nation for printing whatever conspiracy theories they can come up with, the facts be damned.
It’s a bad sign when Aamir Liaquat Husain complains that you are too biased. And yet that has happened.
“We are not players, we are umpires,” says Aamir Liaquat Husain, who anchors a controversial religious talk show on Geo. “We should act like a neutral person.”
He is correct. Journalists and TV anchors should be neutral and unbiased observers. Like umpires, they must be counted on to give an impartial report of events, not to try to influence the game. Maybe an umpire doesn’t like Shane Warne, but he shouldn’t call him out unless he is actually out. In the same way, journalists don’t have to like Zardari or anyone else – but they do need to be fair and impartial in their reporting.
TV ratings are great for media companies, and no one complains about the additional revenue generated from advertising. But those gifts may not last forever. What happens when Zardari is no longer in office? Will they just continue to criticise in the same way whoever is there? Eventually, the people will get tired of this game. Or, worse, the media may convince a less democratically-oriented government that they cannot handle the responsibility of a free press. And then all those ratings will come to naught. Who will pay for all those expensive suits then, I wonder?
Ahmed Quraishi's Visa Conspiracy…Debunked
Friday, June 25th, 2010Ahmed Quraishi’s latest column is a laughable conspiracy theory that is a natural follow up to his foolish (and quickly disproven) claim that an American city government had posted anti-Pakistan signs. It seems he is willing to believe anything, no matter how ridiculous. This latest story claims that Husain Haqqani and Rehman Malik were part of a conspiracy to get the ailing Gary Faulkner into the country to hunt Osama bin Laden because they mistakenly thought he was CIA.
According to Ahmed Quraishi, Haqqani and Malik let this old man with poor health and a criminal record into the country because they mistakenly thought he was a top-secret CIA agent. Here is an interview with this man that supposedly Husain Haqqani and Rehman Malik mistakenly believed was a spy:
The man is clearly mentally disturbed. It is sad really. But how are we supposed to believe that anyone mistook him for a CIA agent?
Ahmed further claims that “only a few months ago Ambassador Haqqani faced accusations he issued visas to tens and possibly hundreds of US citizens without verifying who these visa applicants represented.”
Where is the evidence for this? This is a very serious claim for Ahmed Quraishi to make. If he has some evidence that this is a fact, he should present this to the government. If he has no evidence, is this anything but slander?
Despite what Ahmed Quraishi might want to believe, an Ambassador does not usually issue travel visas personally. Actually, there is an entire Embassy staff to review visa applications and grant a stamp of approval.
Second, the deportation of an individual instead of prosecution is not unusual, even from US to Pakistan. In May, a US judge ordered a Pakistani man suspected of helping Faisal Shazad to be deported back to Pakistan, not to to “rot in US jails” like Ahmed tries to say. Even Ahmed’s claim that Haqqani has been “forcing these kids to accept the false charges against them” does not follow reality. A Boston Globe article from May reported that Haqqani was working to protect Pakistanis accused by American law enforcement.
Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States said yesterday that three Pakistani men arrested in New England last week as part of the investigation into the attempted Times Square bombing do not appear to have any involvement in terrorism.
Husain Haqqani, who has been briefed by Pakistani officials, said that law enforcement cast a wide net during the investigation and that the three men were only taken into custody because alleged immigration violations were discovered while they were being questioned.
“For all we know, there will be no connection at the end of it,” Haqqani said during a telephone interview. “I’m a little critical of law enforcement who ran to the press first, because you can actually destroy people’s lives. So far, there is nothing that implies anything of a terrorist nature.”
When Ahmed sums up his argument, it is laughable.
Moral of the story is that Pakistanis can rot in US jails but a US citizen who is in clear violation of Pakistani laws will always be promptly released by a pro-US government in Islamabad.
Except that this is not even close to true. Does Ahmed not read the news? Is he so disconnected from reality that he is living on another planet? Let me provide a news clipping from the USA today: “Americans Get 10 Years in Pakistan in Terror Case”.
A Pakistan court sentenced five young Americans from the Washington, D.C., area to 10 years in jail for plotting terrorist acts in the country after they connected with an al Qaeda-linked jihadi via the Internet.
…
A State Department spokesman said embassy representatives have followed the case closely and ensured the defendants’ rights were protected.
“We have met periodically with each individual and have not seen any evidence of mistreatment,” said the spokesman, P.J. Crowley. “We will continue to…support them during the appeals process.”
It turns out that Ahmed Quraishi is once again incorrect. Americans can rot in Pakistani jails just the same. He won’t admit this, though, because he is not a real journalist but a propagandist only.
Let’s be realistic, please. If Ahmed Quraishi really believes that a “50-year-old ex-con and construction worker with ailing kidneys” could be mistaken for a CIA agent, he needs to have his head examined. More than likely, though, Ahmed Quraishi thought this would be a clever way to plant a new conspiracy theory. Problem is, his theories have gotten so silly that they don’t even make sense to people who want to believe them.
Television's Real Wrestling
Thursday, June 24th, 2010Following up on Chris Cork’s excellent column in The News last week, we received by email the following piece by Salman Masood for The Express Tribune. With all of this outcry against TV’s inanity, will the producers finally pay some attention?
One of the by-products of the Musharraf era are television talk show hosts. Far from the new sensation, this lot has degenerated into sensationalistic, populist and deluded evangelists who are high on self-righteous pretence. Often they open their shows with teleprompter-driven debate like monologues, full of hyperbole and exaggerations. With an inflated air of self-importance, they proceed to denigrate and belittle guests, provoking and testing their patience with taunts and backhanded insults. More often than not, this tactic works: guests take the bait as they fume and froth and indulge in ugly verbal sparring.
Millions then sadistically enjoy the spectacle.
There is no sense of balance. Objectivity is conveniently forgotten and put aside. Political agendas and motivations are sugarcoated as analysis. Emotionalism and cheap sentimentalism is presented as something intellectual and profound. Emphasis on factual accuracy is absent.
All this is justified in the name of ‘ratings.’
Talk show hosts and politicians have become strange bedfellows. Both loathe each other but need one another badly.
If anchors indulge in excesses, politicians don’t lag far behind as they lay bare their shortcomings and deficiencies in utterly foolish displays. Shouting down their opponents in a crude and ruffian manner is a regular feature on such programs. There is almost no debate on policy or vision for the future. ‘In the moment’ kind of shows dominate the airwaves — their importance as ephemeral and transient as the passing moment.
Callers are also a unique feature. Every second caller forgets to or ignores turning down the television volume but remembers to praise the talk show host in absolute and grandiose terms. These callers prop the anchors not just as media celebrities but more as ‘messiahs’ and ‘harbingers of change’ who should feel the weight of the nation on their shoulders. And most anchors have already started to act as if only they know the cure to the malaise that ails the nation. Anchors act or seem to want to act, less like media-journalist types and more like politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and policy makers. Public impatience with the incumbents is usually short but these media crusaders are now prompting such emotions to run extremely high. Demands for action in any sort of a situation are urgent and instantaneous. Any sort of delay is portrayed as a conspiracy or apathy of the highest order.
But what panacea are they offering?
These talk shows are only inducing and moulding the public to prefer sensationalism to rationality and reason. In the garb of awareness, they are promoting extreme ideas, oversimplification of often complex and multifaceted issues and above all: superficiality.
Some time back, I had a conversation with a female talk show host. She was concerned about another rival anchor having the same time slot. She wanted input about her show but was not particularly concerned about improving the quality of content. Her rival seemed to have a knack of inciting and instigating his guests, many of whom had left the programme in the middle, storming out of the studio after throwing down the mic in protest. Her producer wanted her to ‘spice things up’ and she was psyching herself to do so. “Do you see yourself as shouting at the guests or conducting your show like your rival?” I asked. “Its not that I can‘t do it,” she replied.
Expediency and showmanship is the winner on the screen.
Dear Editors, Please Wake Up!
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
I remember the first time I got a small job at a newspaper and wrote my first article. I was proud of it and certain that it would shake things up. One of my heroes was Bob Woodward, the American journalist who broke the ‘Watergate’ story about corruption in the White House. I imagined myself being loved by the people and feared by corrupt politicians and businessmen. The Bob Woodward of Pakistan! When my editor summoned me to his office I was certain he would praise my good work. Instead, I found the opposite.
“What is your source for this information?” he asked. I was stunned. Everybody knew the rumours. It was common knowledge. “You can’t just go around making such claims about people without some very solid evidence! If you are wrong, you will look like a fool and I will look like a fool also!” He was irate. My piece never ran. And a good thing it was, too – I had accused the wrong man.
This taught me a very important lesson about reporting. Sometimes reporters get a little bit caught up in a story. It becomes hard to separate yourself and see the facts objectively once you are sure that you have your man. You actually become part of the story yourself – the hero reporter who exposes corruption.
This is where the editor has a vital job. It is his responsibility to look at the story, judge it based on the sources and the evidence, and decide if it is fit to print. At least, he should. It seems that too often our editors today are falling asleep on the job and letting any Tom, Dick or Harry run whatever wild story they want. We need our editors to please do their job.
Babar Ayaz understands what I am saying. His column for Daily Times yesterday perfectly describes the problem of editors asleep on the job.
Ahmad Noorani Mischaracterizes Zardari Statements, Contradicts Own Newspaper
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Ahmad Noorani, journalist or political operative?
Ahmad Noorani writes a ‘top story’ in The News today that is an example of yellow journalism at its worst. The article, “President confuses PPP Jialas and the nation“, is a political ‘hit job’ and not a serious piece of journalism. Moreover, the author’s argument contradicts recent reports found in his own newspaper.
Ahmed claims that the president does not want to locate and try the killers of Benazir Bhutto. This is a blatant mischaracterization of the president’s remarks in an effort to score political points.
Despite making this claim about the president’s statements, Noorani does not actually provide quotes that back up his claims. Perhaps that is because the actual statements of the president are not as Ahmad Noorani tries to twist them.
Actually, the president has repeatedly said the same thing – that his government will not practise revenge, but will respect the due process of proper law and order. This is even reported in The News on 22 April 2010:
“We do not believe in the politics of revenge. The law will take its own course and the people who are responsible for the martyrdom of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto will be brought to justice, not to revenge,” the president said while addressing PPP workers, members of the bar and the People’s Lawyer Forum from Bahawalpur, Multan and DG Khan divisions here at the Ashraf Sugar Mills.
This is clearly a call for a proper investigation and trial of the killers of Benazir Bhutto, not, as Ahmad Noorani falsely characterizes it, a call to abandon the investigation. Or does Ahmad Noorani believe that there should be simply a revenge killing of some scapegoat with no due process?
Because President Zardari’s statements about the ongoing investigation and forthcoming trials for Benazir Bhutto’s murderers have been quite clear, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that Ahmad Noorani is not engaging in journalism, but is using his position at The News to engage in a political ‘character assassination’ of the president.
It turns out, Mr Noorani, a protege of long-time Zardari critic Mr Ansar Abbasi, is no stranger to political hit jobs. According to research conducted by blogger Mohtasib, in April 2000,
In April 2000, Bahawalpur’s Civil Lines Police registered a case against AhmedNoorani for violating section 144 CrPC, which was imposed to refrain miscreants from provoking sectarian sentiments in the area known as a hotbed of sectarian militancy.Noorani had plastered the walls of Islamia University of Bahawalpur with posters carrying objectionable slogans against some sects (see the police report).
Nor is this the first time that Ahmad Noorani has used his position at The News to write some political propaganda under the cover of journalism. Mr Yousuf Nazar wrote about Ahmad Noorani’s misleading reporting about the 18th Amendment in April of this year.
This raises the question of whether or not Ahmad Noorani is a reporter or a political operative. Judging by this article, the answer does not look good.
Time for TV to Grow Up
Monday, June 21st, 2010Chris Cork, a British social worker who has settled in Pakistan, is tired of watching adults on TV act like petulant children and wonders when TV is going to grow up. He writes this in a column for The News today that gets to the heart of a real problem: The way people act on TV news programmes not only reflects on our society, it influences it as well. When all we see are people yelling and talking over each other and acting like children, this is how we begin to behave ourselves.
There were two men and a woman on the panel and they yelled and shouted at one another as if they were on a street corner – which is all very well if you are on a street corner but perhaps not the best way to comport yourself in front of the viewing public. But then I thought a bit more deeply about what I was looking at – which was street-corner politics but transferred to a TV studio. These were people who felt no constraint by virtue of being ‘on the telly’. They interacted as they do in real life. In real life, sans cameras and producer and anchor, if they disagree they bellow and yell, interrupt, wave shoes and hurl insults at one another.
Then I considered the audience, and came to the conclusion that those watching would have expected the panellists to behave like this because that is how politicians behave; certainly at the grassroots and not infrequently in the various parliamentary chambers.
The sense of outrage that those of us in the chattering classes may feel or express is not mirrored by the majority of the viewing public. I took a quick and unscientific survey within my own household. Nobody thought that the people on the TV were doing anything that was inappropriate, and they were happy to see their elected representatives scrapping like cats in an alley.
Mr Cork is concerned that perhaps there are too many channels and that causes each of them to dumb down their content to get guests and appeal to the widest audience. Whether or not that is true I cannot say. But whatever the cause, his solution is correct: “please -we’ve dumbed down far enough, let’s not get any dumber.”
Ansar Abbasi Reveals His Elitism
Sunday, June 20th, 2010Ansar Abbasi accidentally reveals his elitism today. His column in The News accuses shows utter surprise at the amount of social problems in the country. Of course, he only blames the executive of responsibility of every ill in the nation, but he doesn’t even attempt to say how this is possible. Rather, he just writes a long list of social ills, blames the executive, and sends his driver out for some sweetmeats.
The article’s title is quite a plain accusation: “Judiciary over-burdened because of executive’s incompetence.” Ansar Abbasi then tells in some very surprised tones that the judiciary has to deal with a flood of complaints for “all sorts of injustices like rape, corruption, murder and other cases.” Abbasi states that
“Besides such requests for suo moto notices to the chief justices of the provincial high courts, a total of 2,643,182 new cases were filed before the judiciary at different levels during the last one year. According to the official figures recently released, a total of 3,093,658 cases were decided by the Supreme Court, Federal Shariat Court, high courts and the subordinate judiciary during the last one year, but despite this huge number of disposed of case, the judiciary is faced with the backlog of 1,296,816 cases.”
Apparently, it is news to Ansar Abbasi that there are some serious social problems in our society. It must be nice to live in such a life of luxury, completely removed from the day-to-day world of real Pakistanis that you can be surprised that there are social problems. It must be very strange to think that somehow the executive is responsible for all of these. What a busy man he must be!
Actually, the strangest part of the article is that Ansar Abbasi makes note of the fact that it was not until the independence of the judiciary was restored in March 2009 that the courts began to receive all of these complaints.
But Zardari was president and restored the independence of the judiciary in March 2009. Before this, there was no way for these people to get some justice because the courts were closed to them. So, actually does not Ansar Abbasi have it backwards? Or does he think, like his colleague Amir Mateen that Zardari is some evil genius who has hatched a scheme to confuse everyone by restoring the independent judiciary only to cause himself problems?
Ansar Abbasi doesn’t even try as hard as Amir Mateen to come up with some fantastic plot. Rather he just says, “I only today found out that there are problems in society! It must be Zardari’s fault!” I guess Ansar Abbasi thinks that he does not need any evidence or even logic. When you are as elitist as he is, if you say it you think it must be true.
The Nation's Article About ISI Report Filled With Factual Errors
Friday, June 18th, 2010The Nation has published an article criticising a recent report published by London School of Economics (LSE) that claims the Taliban is working under direction of ISI. The article, by reporter Sikander Shaheen, is shameful as it is a hysterical conspiracy theory with a complete lack of factual basis. Actually, the only source that The Nation quotes even contradicts its own article.
The article we are examining, “LSE’s ‘research’ sole creation of a Zionist”, claims that the controversial report about ISI is the work of Jewish propaganda by the US government. This is not supported by any facts.
First, the entire premise of The Nation’s article is incorrect and easily proven to be so. What is shocking, in fact, is that The Nation appears to have published accusations about the author of this report without doing basic fact-checking.
The Nation’s reporter Sikander Shaheen accuses the author of the controversial report, Mr Matt Waldman, of being “an American author and a Jew by faith.” In fact, Mr Matt Waldman is neither.
These factual errors were confirmed by simply emailing to the author’s publicly available email address and asking. Below are his responses.
First, I asked, “Would you confirm if your faith is Judaism or not?”
You’re correct – my faith is not Judaism and never has been.
Second, I asked, “I suspect from your biography posted on the Harvard University website as well as your interview with Al Jazeera that you are also an Englishman – not an American – is this correct also?”
Yes that’s correct – I’m English.
Here is the interview with Mr Waldman on Al Jazeera that was the first clue that The Nation’s reporting was factually incorrect. How can anyone see this interview and say that Matt Waldman is ‘an American author and a Jew by faith’? Obviously they have not done even elementary fact-checking to publish this.
If The Nation cannot be bothered to verify such simple facts as the nationality and religion of a public person like Mr Matt Waldman, how can we trust any of their other claims? As it turns out, these basic facts are not the only problems with this article.
Sikander also claims without any evidence that the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is a well-known ‘US Government propaganda outlet. Even this claim does not stand up using basic research and fact-checking.
In 2006, researchers from the Kennedy School of Government were criticised in the Jerusalem Post for a report that questioned the influence of Israel’s lobbying on US foreign policy.
Prominent Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is taking on the authors of the study, which blasted the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, AIPAC. Dershowitz, one of Israel’s strongest defenders in the American public and academic arena, was mentioned personally in the study as an “apologist” for Israel, claiming he is one of those responsible for endorsing the notion that Israel pursued peace in the Middle East for many years. Dershowitz slammed the authors – Stephan Walt, from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago – and challenged them to a public debate at the Kennedy School. “You have to counter this article”, Dershowitz told The Jerusalem Post, “These are two serious scholars and you need to expose what they have done as ignorant propaganda”.
In fact, a Kennedy School of Government report from April 2008 praises the Hajj for building religion and tolerance.
We find that participation in the Hajj increases observance of global Islamic practices such as prayer and fasting while decreasing participation in localized practices and beliefs such as the use of amulets and dowry. It increases belief in equality and harmony among ethnic groups and Islamic sects and leads to more favorable attitudes toward women, including greater acceptance of female education and employment. Increased unity within the Islamic world is not accompanied by antipathy toward non-Muslims. Instead, Hajjis show increased belief in peace, and in equality and harmony among adherents of different
religions.
It seems that calling Kennedy School of Government reports ‘propaganda’ is simply an easy accusation for anyone that does not like the contents of the research. Or does Sikander Shaheen and The Nation believe that the US government is making anti-Israel and pro-Hajj propaganda also?
At the end of the article, Sikander quotes another article written by Raven Gale. This does not appear to be an article published in any newspaper, but a blog post from the website www.ZoneAsia-Pk.com. Even here The Nation fails to be honest because it only quotes part of the Raven Gale’s post that it likes. Actually, the conclusion of the post by Raven Gale contradicts The Nation’s article.
The US has spent US $ 300 billion in Afghanistan so far and it is spending US $ 70 billion annually. 1800 foreign troops of which 1100 are Americans have been killed in Afghanistan. Surely the US would not be doing all this if it was not completely sure of the alliance with Pakistan—if the ‘research paper’ seeks to undermine the US-Pakistan relationship then it is subversive for US policy and goals.
If you are to believe Sikander Shaheen and The Nation, you must think the US government is making propaganda to undermine itself.
All of this is hugely disappointing because there are real and pressing questions about Mr Matt Waldman’s report that can and should be asked without resorting to wild accusations and conspiracy theories. For example, The Nation article notices that,
The paper lacks any mention about the number of casualties suffered by Pakistan Army and public in American war against terrorism that caused irreparable setbacks to Pak economy.
This is an important and legitimate point. So why does The Nation only write this one sentence? Why does The Nation not make some actual arguments about Mr Waldman’s points like Al Jazeera does? Instead they are spending almost all of the article making accusations against the author Mr Waldman and hysterical conspiracies of Jews and American propaganda
This shameful act by The Nation is not only a waste of time, it also undermines any legitimate criticism of Mr Waldman’s report by making those who ask legitimate questions – not to mention Pakistan as a whole – look like crazy people.
Pakistan Media Watch calls on The Nation to publish a full apology and correction.
