Vo intizar tha jiska, ye vo sahar to nahin

(It’s not the dawn we expected; It’s not the dawn we were looking for — Translated by Mahmud Jamal)

THE words of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, written in August 1947, may well be applied to the outcome of the long struggle for freedom of the media in Pakistan.

As someone who came into journalism in the early 1980s when direct censorship was in force, I was in awe of the courage and defiance of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists and the journalists who stood up to the brutal military dictatorship of Gen Ziaul Haq.

While the press became relatively free during the tenure of the first Benazir Bhutto government, private television channels first came on air in 2002, with the launch of Geo in October of that year. There has been no looking back, no time for introspection.

Private channels were expected to present alternate and critical views to citizens fed up with the propaganda of PTV. No one expected that the alternate viewpoint would be more reactionary than any propagated by the state-owned channel. Sadly, what we have to contend with today is not only a dumbing down of debate but its more insidious redirection.

Sometime back I had written about the media becoming the third ‘m’ in the existing nexus between the mullah and the military. The ‘mullah’ may not be physically present in most programmes but the thinking of most television talk show hosts and scriptwriters ensures that they are never really absent.

When a young Hindu man is converted to Islam on prime time television and in a programme that is not even categorised as ‘religious’, the presence or absence of clerics doesn’t really count. The anchor is not just converting the hapless Hindu youth but audiences both within and outside the television studios.

The recent coverage of the killing of Taliban leader, Hakeemullah Mehsud, in a drone attack on Nov 1, demonstrates where a major section of the media’s sympathies lie.

While the politicians took the lead in mourning the death of a mass murderer, the media contributed to raising the hysterical pitch at which all news and debate concerning Hakeemullah’s killing was being aired. Whether out of fear or ideological beliefs, the media, by and large, focused on the illegality of the US drone attack, glossing over the many murderous attacks ordered by Mehsud in which soldiers were beheaded and ordinary Pakistani citizens were killed.

It was only when the army condemned the Jamaat-i-Islami chief’s statement in which he called Hakeemullah Mehsud a martyr that leading politicians and television channels changed their stance.

In a possible tactical strategy, the Taliban have recently taken to denying attacks on civilians and naming obscure groups as being responsible. In the interest of fairness (and perhaps landing a scoop), the media could have taken the initiative in investigating instances where the Taliban claim non-involvement, such as the suicide attack on the Peshawar church in September.

However, the media has chosen to stay away from exposing the brutal truth about the Taliban. On the other hand, the intensity with which drone attacks are discussed gives the impression as if it is the biggest human rights violation in Pakistan and the most serious threat to the country’s sovereignty.

Private television channels have acquired tremendous power and influence. This has led to talk show hosts not only gaining celebrity status but trying to take on the role of power brokers.

The Lal Masjid case of 2007 is a perfect example. After persistently castigating the government for non-action against the militants who were beginning to practically set up a parallel administration, members of the media took on the role of negotiators with the Ghazi brothers when they were holed up with arms and ammunition at the mosque.

Later, they turned their guns on the Musharraf regime for taking out the militants by laying siege to the mosque. The judiciary, too, partly influenced by the media it seems, has sided with the militant Ghazi brothers and against the army action, acquitting Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi on all charges, including murder.

The spread of religiosity by the media has had some frightening — and deadly — consequences. In September 2008, in Geo’s Aalim Online, derogatory language was used against the founder of the Ahmadis when a participant justified the killing of members of the community. Soon three Ahmadis had been killed in Sindh.

In the case of Salmaan Taseer, the hate campaign launched by the mullah-media alliance began shortly after he visited blasphemy accused, Aasiya Bibi, in prison and said that the blasphemy laws needed to be amended. Soon after, Samaa TV allowed a participant in a discussion programme to proclaim that the killing of Taseer was justified. On Dec 5, 2010, Nawa-i-Waqt in an editorial accused him of blasphemy. On Jan 4, 2011, Taseer’s own guard shot him in cold blood.

The response of the media to the assassination and the glorification of the killer, Mumtaz Qadri, are black chapters in the history of the Pakistani media.

Periodically, the Anjuman Ahmadiyya sends meticulously compiled clippings of news items published in the Urdu press against the community. It should be noted that all leading Urdu newspapers participate in the anti-Ahmadi campaign. Most of the opinions expressed would fall under the category of hate speech, a crime allowed to flourish in Pakistan and which, to a great extent, is stoked by the media.

The objective of pointing out the dangerous path the media is treading is not to deny it its long cherished freedom. Intentions to set up monitoring bodies or complaints commissions need to see the light of day. Freedom must be tempered with responsibility. In Pakistan’s volatile situation, this realisation must be at the heart of every journalist’s work.

The writer is a freelance contributor.