NEVER a dull day, that’s Pakistan for you. As the whole country was winding down for the Eid break, excitement was on its way as two young army officers serving in the Special Service Group (SSG) were chased after they were clocked over the speed limit and stopped by the Motorway Police not far from the officers’ base at Attock Fort.

The matter would have been resolved by the handing over of a speeding penalty had it been anyone other than the SSG officers. But it didn’t as the officers got entangled in an argument with the policemen.

One of the officers called his base for ‘back up’ and soon a number of vehicles arrived at the scene with armed commandos, and the policemen were roughed up and taken to the fort. After the intervention of senior police and SSG officers they were released.

The ‘scuffle’ between the Motorway Police and army personnel was recorded.

The incident, which the army described as an unfortunate ‘scuffle’ and promised to investigate, has been reported in detail in the media so there is no point going over that again. It will be pertinent, though, to point out that such incidents are now coming into public knowledge directly with the widespread use of smartphones and social media.

The ‘scuffle’ was photographed and video clips were recorded by someone. Soon after, they were all over Twitter. What followed were some hot and unnecessary exchanges on social media, where some called for upholding the law and demanded that no special treatment be extended to the SSG men.

This group of social media users was soon dubbed as PML-N social media wing members by some young army officers on Twitter and they started suggesting that there was a “conspiracy” to defame the armed forces via exploiting “this isolated incident”.

Certain supporters of the SSG men also started to justify their transgression by saying that police were rude and used to riding roughshod, so they had this coming. They were outraged if anyone shared their experience of the Motorway Police being routinely polite. It was all a conspiracy to them.

Of course, what these hotheads were not willing to consider was that the whole incident would not have happened if the two SSG officers had observed the speed limit or accepted the fine as the rest of us would have once stopped for exceeding it.

I have often detected a strange antagonism between the few young officers who are on social media and their critics. To the extent that many of these soldiers are in the front line of the fight against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and some of them have had to sacrifice life and limb, their being upset is understandable if they feel unloved.

But to take an indefensible incident and then start to paint it as a conspiracy to defame their institution is a bit much. Frankly, this defensive mindset extends way beyond the confines of the army. In our culture, there seems to be dearth of any tolerance for criticism. Yes, we journalists are definitely not immune to this. I couldn’t help but laugh at being ‘blocked’ by a fellow journalist in the electronic media at the first hint of criticism when his programme content was so blatantly biased that it was screaming to be questioned.

None of us can take a position from our understanding of an issue whether it is political or ethical or however else classified without having our motives questioned. This is particularly true if the view being expressed is at odds with the position of the so-called establishment at that point in time.

The media itself has so much of the blame to share. It has decided to put in ‘filters’ of narrowly defined national interest, of perceived sanctity of certain institutions and even commercial interest, where the only filter should be one of good, ethical journalism. If it is the truth, if the news can withstand professional scrutiny why not let it be heard and seen?

This newspaper receives accolades for merely doing its job because so many others have abandoned it. From being upholders of the truth and the guardians of the rights of the voiceless, many media outlets today look no better than cheerleaders for contending centres of power, of dodgy commercial interest.

How many media outlets followed up on this newspaper’s investigation of Bahria Town affairs even when superior courts vindicated Dawn’s standpoint. Yesterday’s paper has the same intrepid reporter Naziha Syed Ali’s investigation into the illegal and harrowing kidney trade.

If multiple channels pick up on the story the government may feel forced to take action. Otherwise, it’ll be no more than another day, another story. If the wider media, with advertising revenue flowing in, does not wish to ruffle feathers anywhere and continues to stage noisy, melodramatic and largely pointless talk shows it is welcome to. But it should also consider that smartphones being able to record news events cheaply and widely and having the capacity to place content on social media almost as it is happening will pose a threat to the media houses.

If media houses don’t assign their own journalists to investigate and report freely on stories of public interest, citizen journalists will take the lead via their smartphones and social media. Who knows how this will affect the credibility and longevity of established media?

It would be silly not to talk of the downside of citizen journalism where the lack of editorial oversight might allow content that isn’t what it purports to be. However, if the formal media continues to abdicate one of its key roles that is a risk we’ll have to live with.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2016