If TV takes over half of newspaper-people’s territory, and makes their mastery of the medium of their trade an object of speculation, this should make for a big enough change in Pakistani print media to excite interest.
Intizar Hussain poked at the question, in a way, when he wondered if writing to please oneself (or for writing’s sake) was not anti-journalism After the Lal Masjid operation, the media seems to have lost some of the sympathy it earned in Karachi on July 12.
Is this surprising? Karachi was something of a windfall to the media; the works were in place – a clear and visible villain, palpably un-orchestrated blow-by-blow coverage, the riveting experience of reporters (and no unknown hacks at that) risking their lives on live TV, and most of all, a showdown that began in the morning and ended in the evening, without taxing the viewers’ powers of concentration.
On many counts, the Karachi affair was, from the coverage point of view, a plum.At Lal Masjid, it was clear that the media hadn’t stumbled, candid camera, brave hearts and all, into the romping ground of city hooligans being used as proxies by a harassed government.
The army was running the show; it seemed to have a script for the media too. Its reporters couldn’t come and go as they pleased. Most TV channels could not easily take an anti-government line, since they had supported action against Lal Masjid to a lesser or greater extent. Nor could they blithely condemn the Lal Masjid people, since they and the people who staff them haven’t always refrained from armchair Islamism.
Most of all, they had to reckon with audience fatigue–the operation was out of synch with the average viewer’s attention span.Still, the channels had a reputation to live up to.
Not to be seen leading with an operatic story, with no inside information (they even got the name wrong!), no black and white certainties to offer the public? Sadly, this was their lot.
There were shots aplenty of troop movement and people scampering for cover amid ricocheting bullets. But they were recycled to the point where they lost their ability to produce sensation (hearing, seeing, excitement, anxiety, so on).
It was silly of them to be seen ‘breaking news’ all hours of the day for an entire week anyway; who watching daylight shots at nine in the evening would want to trust that appellation again? Their best moments were when they tried to act as negotiators between Ghazi and the government.
Though this attempt had a touch of the audacity that audiences have become used to, it never came off looking deadly-serious.
Of all the things that viewers now expect TV news to do, the coverage succeeded best, I think, in bringing the events of Lal Masjid close, unbearably close, to them.
The coverage of Lal Masjid, in short, was as unsatisfactory, troubled, incomplete and disheartening as the events themselves. There is perhaps no other issue on which so many Pakistanis are compromised as on religious extremism. They have admired the jihadis for fighting for them in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and for having the guts to stand up to an undemocratic government.
Yet they have wanted them to stay at arm’s length, a distant threat – on the other side of the Durand line, in Fata, at least outside Islamabad. One by one they spatial barriers we have erected for them in our minds are being broken. On TV and in real life, they are inching closer.
Like the public, the media will find it difficult to take an unequivocal position on militancy. Will this tarnish the glamour of the electronic media? It remains to be seen.
My colleague Ejaz Haider argued in these pages that TV coverage thrives on superficiality – to that I will add that it thrives on its ability, not even to inform, but to reveal. In this game, the image that is not at the same time a revelation is sour on the palate.
Pakistanis in common with the rest of the world are developing the habit of getting their first news – the first impression, the rush of horror or adrenalin – from TV and then waiting for the morning papers for a summary of what they have seen but haven’t absorbed properly. This has been giving papers the idea that they have to go beyond the news – since they can’t break it themselves. Also, their nature as written material is weighing in on them with an urgency not witnessed before.
Arguments have been made that print lasts longer, is better able to analyse, and doesn’t force itself upon the reader as TV does upon the viewer. You can put it away, pick it up again, take your time over it, and so on. All of this is true; but it is interesting that before the onslaught of the electronic media, newspapers wanted to treat their wares much as the television does.
The writing was an accident; serious cases of it were to be limited to comments and columns. Even the latter were staid affairs of political commentary and position-taking, relying on repetition in a manner not unlike today’s run of TV talk shows. What newspapers wanted was the news: the story and the startling image.
Newspaper-people are still, by and large, not writers. Many of them would shy away from the accusation. The editors are supposed to take care of that side of it. If TV takes over half of their territory, and makes their mastery of the medium of their trade an object of speculation, this should make for a big enough change in Pakistani print media to excite interest.
Intizar Hussain poked at the question, in a way, when he wondered if writing to please oneself (or for writing’s sake) was not anti-journalism.
Source: Daily Times
Date:7/20/2007
