You can never be truly objective and some stories are more equal than others
“Good evening and welcome to another edition of Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” would actually be a better opening for most of the talk shows that adorn our TV channels. Fortunately, the news is an even bigger joke. Speculation masquerading as reportage and opinion being presented as fact is an all-too familiar sight on our hapless TV screens. And if you’re watching any of the decibel queens of primetime TV in High Definition, may God have mercy on your soul.
But it’s not like they can help it. A 24-hour news channel is an insatiable beast, it just wants more and more. No matter how big the story, it will be a ‘Macarena’ before you can say “follow-up”. Investigative journalism is only a distant dream at this point and the public interest is bastardised every day by a two-bit sermonising televangelist. The three-ring circus of Tahirul Qadri and the coverage around it left a bad taste in one’s mouth; and it’s not over yet.
Partisan media is a by-product of the profit incentive: you can never be truly objective because some stories are more equal than others. Especially those stories that feature parties that advertise with you. The same can also be said of stories about people who pay you to play them up. While paid content is as old as the mass media itself, paid content that is not identified as paid content poses the real moral quagmire. Unfortunately, this practice is not uncommon: the incentives need not even be tangible either. It could be as simple as a reporter favouring the candidate he/she has a personal liking for. The same could be said for the owner of a media outlet. Personal bias, then, is irremovable from journalist practice.
The same cannot be said of rigour, or the lack thereof. TV news today is a shambles. Reporters, in their race to get the story first, will twist facts and present half-truths. This is most true of court reporters and those on the “political beat”. While the former are guilty mostly of errors committed in haste, the latter have real license to play it fast and loose with the facts. Each channel has a handful of ‘political correspondents’, people who “have their fingers on the pulse” of the capital. These sensationalising sideshows are what keep talk shows and news bulletins on the air. In real life, things are not as glorious as it would seem. These beat reporters will do anything to spin a story today and graduate to their own primetime TV shows in a few years, where they will hold forth.
I have the (perhaps unfortunate) privilege of being personally acquainted with some of our younger talk show hosts. They are usually good people led astray in the pursuit of the bigger payout. Take Iqrarul Hassan, who hosts ‘Sar-e-Aam’ on ARY News. A seasoned news anchor, Iqrar is a knowledgeable young man with a clear head and fiery oratory skills to boot. However, what comes off onscreen is so far removed from this reality and all we see is a man with a mic running around town chasing down bad guys like he were Chuck Norris. Jasmine Manzoor is another, whose penchant for high decibel discourse drowns out whatever noble intentions she may have. Kashif Abbasi looks like he’s given up trying to host his show at all. While his guests scream incoherently in separate windows, he sits there unwilling to moderate, content in the knowledge that the ratings will keep coming in.
It is ironic that in the midst of this melodrama, voices such as the infamous Hamid Mir seem to be the most rational. A far cry from his days of sensation-mongering, Mir has emerged a changed man. His stance on many issues has demonstrated a clear break from the state-oriented conservative agenda that used to be his hallmark. Granted, that this change has not come overnight and this certainly does not mean that he is somehow above all the malpractices that characterise our news media. However, it does herald a new era, one where experience and analysis is valued above the volume of one’s voice.
But one reformed actor is not enough. The culture of catering to the People’s Meter needs overhauling. Public interest programming and investigative journalism need to foster and media owners need to be bold if they are to captivate their ever-increasing audiences. But until this happens, take your news with a pinch of salt and the Flying Circus as just that, nothing more.
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