The Pakistani media on many occasions has proved to be rather irresponsible and insensitive. Take the recent floods or the earlier Air Blue crash this year. The media was unstoppable! While one showed a cartoon plane crashing over and over again, others gave out misinformation about survivors etc. And now the constant flood footage! Whereas the awareness is good, I believe there is more to journalism than criticizing the government. There is a human element there, its people's lives and livelihoods, these are real time stories - but hardly anyone has captured anything factual and human apart from the obvious.
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) was established by Musharraf in 2002 to facilitate and regulate the establishment and operation of all private broadcast media and distribution services in Pakistan; in turn giving freedom of speech to the local media. Today, the same media which had literally limited or no rights whatsoever doesn't hesitate to criticize the man who provided this platform.
How can we have forgotten the time of our former leaders when the media was allowed to provide nothing more than the essential news? How about the reign of Zia which made it mandatory for all women to have their heads covered whilst appearing on television? (An era more popularly know as the "Dupatta Culture") A romance scene in the dramas seemed like siblings conversing. Bhutto made it impossible for newspapers to print the truth by countering their every move. Junoon (Pakistani band) was banned from performing within their homeland during Nawaz Sharif's tenure for singing Iqbal's poetry in a new way to have more outreach, whereas in fact, the ban was an indirect caution to their single "Ehtesaab".
Then the media was given the chance to rise and today Pakistan hosts more electronic mediums than most developed nations. The media influences people, has the right to say or do whatever and clearly has no sense of regard for responsible journalism. I've noticed people are scared of the media. This is not how it should be, the media needs to be your source of information. There needs to be more to news than just yellow journalism which is a result of unprofessional media personnel being inducted into the work sphere of media outlets. Reporters are people who have had no formal educational training in the field, they don't know the right questions to ask or the right stories to investigate. This leaves our media a joke for the rest of the world and in turn an unreliable source. Channels get banned due to their tactless means and come back on air leaving no respect for authority which results in making Pakistan itself look foolish.
Our literary media, i.e; the writers, are a limited resource. Our film industry, once the classic silvers screen is now stuck in the same "Gandasa Culture" imposed in the 80's.
At the same time, we are all easily influenced by the media as well because it is a source of knowledge as well as entertainment and is easily intertwined in our daily lives. If anything, the media can bring forward a positive image of Pakistan and having spoken to various journalists on occasions, I know that they want to. But somehow it is not visible.
What we don't realize is that news is not the only form of media., media itself is communication. Written records such as books are the purest form of media. Then evolving, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, film and now the internet - all media. Communication is a powerful platform which can make or break anything. The media industry itself is supported by advertisements, again, a form of media, i.e; influencing. It all falls into a cycle. One can't exist without the other. Then how is it so difficult to utilize these resources humbly, with caution? With all the pros and cons of the media industry, is there really a balance within our local media? Are we heading towards trouble, or is this the way Pakistan will move forward? Does conventional media still count as important or will new media take over and every layman will be a journalist in his or her own right? The question remains - our media, friend or foe?
No comments:
Post a Comment