“What is the media?” This was one of the questions panellists attempted to answer at the session titled ‘Media: More Independent, Less Responsible’. F.S. Aijazuddin called the media the “mirror … voice … [and] conscience” of society, while Rashed Rahman called it a “watchdog of the public’s interest”. But in a conversation on how free and responsible the media is, perhaps the most accurate description given was when Aijazuddin called the media “a new weapon”.

The discussion, moderated by Saif Mahmood, and featuring Nasim Zehra, Rahman, and Aijazuddin, acknowledged the changing landscape of the media, and the challenges that lie in the way of an independent, responsible media.

Rahman spoke briefly on the history of the media in Pakistan, particularly regarding the ‘freeing’ of the media in the early 2000s. He said that Pakistan saw approximately 40 years of “draconian censorship”. Back then, journalism was an even riskier profession than it is today. “The ‘midnight knock’ was well known. People disappeared,” he said. In the mid ’80s, there was an incremental freeing up of the media that continued once the civilian government returned in 1988. He said that when the electronic media was freed in 2002, there was a parallel proliferation of the print media. “What happens when you go, overnight, from one TV channel to 50-60 news channels — we didn’t have the human resources to man all those channels.

The result was a frantic race to find people … [and people were hired who were] inexperienced, unqualified, incompetent — all that resulted … in the media today.”

Rahman countered the assertion that the media is ‘independent’. While there was potential for diversity of opinion, incrementally, that independence is steadily being strangled he said. “Today the scene is very grim. It’s grim on the electronic media because you have a deadly conformity of opinion. It’s almost as though the news and the opinion on the news is being dictated from one source.”

Zehra, however, contended that the media is independent, but not insusceptible to influence. Some of these influencers were identified by the panellists as state institutions, non-state actors, extremist threats, and commercial interests. However, when asked whether media houses were succumbing to establishment pressure, Zehra said: “Nobody can control thought today.” Has the media, over the years, been a platform for debating ideas in society? A resounding yes, she opined.

The panellists also discussed state regulation and the media’s self-regulation. Rahman said that the media’s failure to self-regulate led to state intervention, in the form of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority.

As they discussed new opportunities for media independence in the form of social media, or the challenges faced by a multitude of interests, the panellists returned to what the media ought to be, and what it is. Aijazuddin agreed that the media should function as a watchdog, however, he added: “I find it disturbing, and yet symptomatic about society, that the department of Pakistan Army that was once the service department, or ISPR, should today be headed by a man who has the rank of lieutenant general, which in my mind … equates him to the person who has all the armoured force at his command … What does it tell me? It tells me that media is the new weapon.”

Rahman was even more pessimistic: “There’s a phrase that emanated from the French Revolution: the fourth estate. Estates were communities of interest represented in parliament, and because the media was emerging as a powerful player, it came to be called the fourth estate … Now the fourth estate, as translated in Pakistan, has become the fourth pillar of the state.”