IN the tumultuous days at the end of the Musharraf regime, when it started being said that the country’s electronic news media was not just a spectator of the political game but perhaps a player, too, many could smell change in the air.

A friend who works in theatre was approached by a certain channel: give our news presenters and commentators some of the appropriate training that actors are given, they said, so that they can more easily stay on top of breaking or swiftly evolving stories, and keep audiences involved.

My friend started by putting his class through a series of breathing and voice-modulation exercises. He explained how, in moments of stress, the human voice tends to get high-pitched, and that this is undesirable for people in their profession since the person relating the news must appear calm and in control to gain the audience’s trust. He demonstrated how in moments of agitation, people tend to wave their hands about a little too much, which audiences find irksome and distracting, and how frequently changing positions of the body — elbows on and off the table, the shuffling or sorting of papers — can negatively impact the credibility of the presenter.

Poise in reporting can be seen as lacklustre coverage

A few days later, though, the suit called. He wasn’t pleased. His objection was, why on earth are you teaching my crew to tone it down? They’re absolutely lacklustre now. It turned out that while the channel had indeed wanted its people trained, the last thing it wanted was poise.

“How do you expect viewers to stay with us if our presenters have no animation, as if they don’t have emotions about the events, too?” he boomed. My friend objected, pointing out that audiences need to be able to form a cool understanding of events, and for that they needed a calm presenter or reporter. Poise was not the same as being lacklustre, he said.

“What do you know?” the corporate retorted. “Pakistan is hysterical. Pakistanis are hysterical. To keep them tuned in we need to whip up their emotions and provide them entertainment. Train our people, but don’t make — BBC presenters out of them.”

Needless to say, the classes were discontinued.

Around the same time, a few trained actors that I used to know found employment in a corner of the television industry that they had never earlier thought would have a place for them. They were hired by news channels as the hosts of the sort of shows that do exposés. You know, the sort that tell One Man’s story and invite you to imagine the injustice that was done to him, or the tragedy that he suffered. Or surreptitiously follow someone around and then confront him.

Trained actors, acting as outraged journalists — so much better able to manipulate the audience’s emotions.

On the other side of the spectrum, consider what a certain Andy Bodle had to say recently in a blog called ‘Mind your Language’ that is on The Guardian’s website. Opposed to hyperbole in general, because it dilutes the meaning of words, about it being used in journalism he writes: “While hyperbole can be effective in, say, comment pieces and reviews, I would question whether it has any place at all in news reporting. … Open the news pages today and you’ll struggle to find a policy that isn’t a flagship policy, a ruling that isn’t a landmark ruling, a speech that isn’t a landmark speech, a criticism that isn’t damning, a negotiation that isn’t frantic, a blow that isn’t devastating, a large company that isn’t a giant or a majority that isn’t vast. … Crisis — ‘a period of intense difficulty or danger’ — seems a reasonable term to describe what’s been happening in Ukraine, Syria or South Sudan. But is it really the appropriate term to describe a slight decline in popularity of South Korea’s national dish? …

“Hyperbole, as a technique of oratory, was praised by the likes of Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian because it conveyed emotional truth. … News journalists aren’t supposed to argue cases or convey feelings. They’re supposed to tell us the facts. You could argue, therefore, that if a news journalist exaggerates, it’s not hyperbole at all; it’s deception.”

Yes, exactly. Through various tricks to which sections of Pakistan’s news media, print and news, resort, they betray their willingness to deceive and cheat in the thirst for audiences. It’s not just Pakistan, obviously. But here, there seem to be no sane voices calling for restraint. Even a code of conduct agreed upon by major news channels several years ago has been thrown to the winds, as was demonstrated during the coverage of the attack on Karachi airport. In this recent debacle, organisations went as far as to announce the movement of security forces, something that happened before at the Manawan Police Academy, too.

Can we ask our journalists to go back and read the manual, please?

The writer is a member of staff.

hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 23rd , 2014