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Editorial
introspection Why
‘M’ is not really a word debate As
serious as a critic?
This one show that gained
such notoriety in recent days offered us an opportunity to look at us. This
is one thing we have kept putting off. Eight to ten years in the field and
our claims of infancy remain. We the fourth pillar of
the state, the watchdog, could not commit a wrong. We stand on a high
pedestal and claim to be representing all of the 180 million people each
time we have talked down to the corrupt political elite. The people
committed a blunder in electing the corrupt NRO-ridden, fake-degree holding,
stupid politicians. We will not let them do this again. We opened up the Memogate
that closed sooner than we thought. We shall not budge. Now we shall not
allow the Senate elections under the flawed voters’ lists. Somewhere in between our
exalted goals came this show and we could not put off looking at our mirror
image one more time. To some, it appeared ghastly. So, what to do? We jump in
to distance ourselves from this one. Activists that we were, we joined hands
with the ones operating on the social media to have this erring anchor fired
from job. There is a sense of déjà vu. But that’s how we work —
depending on fleeting memory span. At this point in time, we
try to make the distinction between us and the entertainment tv sharp and
clear. Deep down we know it’s a
systemic issue and there’s nothing we can do about it; our claims about
the flaws being due to infancy notwithstanding. Our counterpart on
television, the drama, has made a comeback. From its heydays it took a
nosedive and it has reemerged with a bang; because a relatively small
channel kept getting strong, building itself on the yardstick of excellence.
Others had to follow. With us newsmen, the
competition is cut-throat. So together we all keep lowering the standards.
We are accused of distorting tastes; of sensationalising. But we break even.
We make profits. Often, on occasions like
this, we do raise noises about our collective desire for self-regulation.
Nothing but self-regulation. Soon it’s time to go back to our newsrooms
and our talk-shows studios. We do realise people need a break from
politician-bashing; so on weekends we give them prostitutes and eunuchs. Frankly, we have been
overcriticised by some sections. We do after all give people what they want
to see. See, this looking within does help.
introspection Day after day, minute by
minute, TV takes us places in pursuit of ‘drama’ — to private quarters
of private people, to crime scenes, to studios where heads meet to create
noise; a lot of noise. TV looks for drama at all the odd places — in
hospitals, police stations, court rooms, public offices, just about
everywhere — and to the centre of controversies and judgments. Truthfully, this little
‘idiot box’ of ours has come to become all intrusive and all powerful.
Yet, it has not matured to be called an ‘intelligent box’. Today’s
television, to activist and journalist Beena Sarwar, is “dynamic and
evolving, with boundaries between news and entertainment being blurred for
commercial reasons.” And, it is distressing:
“I do not spend too much time in front of the TV screen, but whenever I
do, it makes me feel very unhappy,” says veteran journalist I. A. Rehman. Or, is it more than this?
Dawn News anchor person and journalist Syed Talat Husain believes the
electronic media is a game changer; a new evolving profession. One of the
follies perhaps, he admits, has been to push the news bulletins aside and
allow the current affairs talk shows to take over. “Now that’s what is
opinionated and arrogant — and, therefore, hits the viewers on the
face.” So, what do we want from
our TV? Behind such calls for
introspection is an accumulation of grievance about how this medium has
acted and expanded over the last decade. For the big critics, the television
journalists have begun to tinker with the boundaries of their profession and
follow weak professional ethics. To quote Sarwar, “When they mix up
entertainment with journalism, it serves the cause of neither.” The more pertinent
question, perhaps, would be to ask what the prior good practices in
journalism are being replaced by. As Rehman says, “Today, since the
viewers are not in a mood to be enlightened and since they no longer find
knowledge and information fun, the TV journalists have learnt that
sensationalism and shock is the only course available to survive the
cutthroat competition and market pressure. And, in the process, the pursuit
of fair assessment of truth and values is failing. They have become party to
moralising. Their purpose is to make noise and not necessarily initiate
quality debate and discourse.” TV professionals have the
record of getting carried away with sheer urgency of their 24/7 coverage and
make mistakes. Take the Maya Khan show which put the electronic media in
immense turmoil, leading to jitteriness to defend the medium at one end and
at the other overconfident shrills to take it in the right direction. There
was deafening noise emanating from all directions, so much that no one could
be heard clearly and effectively. This happens when
television channels try to increase ratings and get more commercials, they
are fulfilling a commercial and business requirement, and hence allow
overshadowing the basic rules of journalism — reporting on all sides of
the story, being accurate, getting a two-source-at least-confirmation, etc
— when they get into the news reporting business. “For that side of
their ‘business’ they need to put aside those commercial interests, and
enable and allow the reporters and producers to focus on the requirements of
journalism, not trying to increase viewership, popularity and ratings,”
stresses Sarwar. ARY News talk show anchor
Fahd Husain agrees. For him, the news channels are veering away from
information and truth in their race for ratings. “Today’s TV journalist
is akin to a salesman, airing content that sells,” he laments. Husain holds the
proprietor responsible for the mess, because he hammers the journalist to
produce content that sells and which not always meets the basic principles
of journalism. “This classic conflict is essentially between the
journalist and the marketing executive. The journalist eyes the story, the
marketeer eyes the revenue; the journalist looks for social impact, the
marketeer at the financial and commercial impact; the journalist has a
responsibility to society, the marketeer to his boss’s balance sheet. This
differentiation between salesperson and journalist must be addressed.
Otherwise the journo will continue to get rot from the owner, and fail to
add value and veracity to his work.” Syed Talat Husain, on the
contrary, is quite comfortable with the marketing formula adopted by
proprietors of TV channels. He equates TRPs to the circulation of
newspapers. “Since the very beginning, the success of a newspaper is
judged by its circulation; it’s a given. So why can’t we digest the idea
of ratings.” In effect, TRPs go against
the grain of being a journalist whose ultimate pursuit is the truth not
ratings. “Running a news channel is about balancing these two,” reminds
Sahar Habib Ghazi, editor-in-chief, Hosh Media, a news website. Also the industry has
experienced the massive proliferation of amateur journalists without
appropriate institutions and colleges to train its professionals. “Our
universities offering journalism courses did not grow with the same ease nor
did they adjust their curricula to the needs of 24/7 live news; when the
news environment in Pakistan was on fire... Many untrained and inexperienced
reporters were pushed into a dizzying environment of breaking news,” adds
Ghazi, pressing for news organisations to fill the gap by offering training
courses to its employees. Here Fahd Husain draws a
distinction: Where the newsroom people are professional in gathering and
prioritising news, the production people are inept at using journalistic
tools and lack understanding of news per se. “Producers have been reduced
merely to technicians. They have world class equipment at hand but no
knowledge of world class journalistic expertise”, he says. So, TV is anarchic and
shaggy. Because “[Only] some TV channels in Pakistan follow informal
editorial guidelines or codes that have developed organically through trial
and error. But to the best of my knowledge no one has compiled and
documented a formal list. All Pakistani channels and media outlets need to
do the same to be considered transparent, accountable and ethical,” says
Ghazi. And, it is freewheeling.
In this milieu, should media owners, producers, journalists and concerned
citizens hammer out a mutually agreed upon code of ethics that can be
periodically reviewed? Should they have their own ombudsman that people can
turn to for complaints and redress? Should PEMRA take charge? Or, should
professionals self-regulate? “Regulation prolongs the
illnesses and weaknesses of the system,” thinks I. A. Rehman. “TV journalist should
essentially self-regulate,” asserts Beena Sarwar. TV channels have traversed
a long, winding path. Its coverage area has increased. It takes viewers
close to rights issues, poverty, corruption and issues that are dear to
their heart. With reporting, it digs in and comes up with qualitative
research. But the fact is that refinement comes only with experience.
Clearly, refinement is what we want from our TV. “But the demand for
refinement must come from the viewers,” stresses Rehman. Why
‘M’ is not really a word Whenever some controversy
about the media erupts, everyone gathers around and bulldozes social
networking, print and television with “what actually is the media’s
role.” My personal favourite is
“we need to actually define things.” The thesis is simple,
defining anything is sheer bollocks. It means that if the definers had their
say, phones would still be attached to wires and no one would actually
consider how good the camera is before buying a mobile. Everything is in constant
flux and, if intelligence is used generously, then we should understand that
we can and do change everything all the time. Another addition to the
kitchen sink, what people think of in moral terms and what people actually
do are two separate ballparks. Take Facebook, for example. One click on an
“add friend” means access, and even if it’s controlled access, its
access to parts of one’s life nonetheless. Is snooping around on
someone’s pictures, social behaviour, religious beliefs or even cooking
habits really a moral thing to do? But we all love to snoop, don’t we?
What we think and what we do is almost not the same thing. Before going to the scene
of the crime, let’s clear out some of the air. Any enterprise has to
survive. The survival is simple. A person or a company offers some sort of
product or service to others; if convinced of its benefit, the buyer will
compensate, usually in monetary value, to the seller. Television is also a
‘commercial’ enterprise. But television is the trickiest of markets
because the transaction is not direct, and here is where Television Rating
Points or TRPs come in. TRPs are an audience
measurement criterion that indicates the popularity of a television channel
or programme. Television may be free, but it actually isn’t. Advertisers
pay for programmes and TRPs are the most important tool for them. It shows
them a measurement—a guidemap— which might not be 100 percent accurate,
but still a measurement of what people are watching, and the more people
will watch a programme, it’s a sure bet that it will generate an
advertiser’s interest and, if a healthy number of advertisement is found,
then it means it’s not only covering the programme’s cost, but also
generating profit. The total reverse would be: a TV show is made, generates
little or no ad interest and is cancelled (which is not the only reason they
are, by the way.) Television is about
intelligence; it’s a game of chess, not right or wrong. Maya Khan’s
ouster was not an intelligent move, an intelligent ouster would be people
having stopped watching her show. Revolting against her and the likes of her
doesn’t really mean a thing because intelligent TV executives, bosses and
advertisers know that there is a large segment of an audience which believes
in what she and many like her preach. In the very opposite end
of the spectrum, a TV channel and a particular TV host had a sizeable
following because of an adult TV show which started after 12am. Where was
the hue and cry there? Television is also one of
the most intricate mediums to see what democracy in its truest essence
means. Morality, truth, puritan, sleazy or any myriad collection of
buzzwords is not what an intelligent television executive (or even an
audience) is looking for television to be; they are only boxes to be filled,
flavours to be aroused in a 24-hour course dinner. The question, therefore,
is only about intelligence and nothing else; opponents sizing each other up
before a boxing match. The audience, the “other TV show” the other TV
channel is the opponent and always will be. It’s always the hustle, the
tricking, of what an audience will watch, can watch, and television is
always getting more and more intelligent; a blow or two doesn’t mean it
will fall down. It only means that it will be careful not to get the next
one. debate Kelvin Mackenzie, a former
editor of the Murdoch-owned The Sun spoke about the “tremendous amount of
snobbery involved in journalism” while talking to the media ethics inquiry
about tabloids, in January this year. He gave a hypothetical example of
hacking into Tony Blair’s cell phone to discover that Blair had bypassed
his cabinet in order to go to war. “If you publish it in The Sun, you get
six months in jail. If you publish it in The Guardian, you get a
Pulitzer.” Having no obvious
connection with the Maya Khan TV programme, though the two may somehow be
linked regarding issues of individuals’ privacy and journalistic ethics,
the quote of Mackenzie does ring a bell about the double standards applied
in our own media world where the small fry gets caught and punished; for the
rest, it’s business as usual. There used to be a time
when things were simple in the world of journalism. It was simple saying
that there has to be a delicate balance between rights of privacy and
freedom of speech. It was simple saying public figures don’t have privacy
rights. It was simple stating that a journalist’s job is to cull out the
truth and that journalists do have the good sense to weigh the public good
element against privacy. And, it was easy telling the editors that they must
exercise their editorial judgment. All of the above was a
subject of debate even then. None of it was taken as a given, with
hunky-dory consequences. But at least the debate was confined within certain
parametres. Somewhere down the line,
things started becoming complex, grey, interest-driven and unimaginably big.
Being in the public domain, they are still subject to yardsticks of ethics
and law. It’s just that the simplistic definitions from yesterday are no
more valid. A journalist’s job is now as much about bringing out the truth
before people as selling the product he works for. Privacy that never sat
easy with freedom of expression is now at absolute variance with it. This conflict is more
pronounced on television where the race for ratings and advertising revenues
is the primary consideration. Editorial judgment is all about whatever
sells. Not that print journalism stands absolved. They both make ludicrous
attempts at invading privacy in the name of investigative journalism. On television, the desire
for profits has blurred any distinction between one genre and the other
(just as the reporters in print write analysis as investigative reports).
The political talk shows are designed, or are at least watched, as
entertainment. The morning shows that ought to have been designed to
entertain and inform, in their bid to venture into investigative journalism,
end up as exercises in moral policing. We don’t know where showbiz begins
and journalism ends. That is why Maya Khan’s
show was a problem. But Maya Khan was not the first one to take a microphone
and camera into people’s faces. The news channels did that long before
her. They have not even shied away from taking the mikes and cameras into
hospital wards seeking comments from injured people who happen to be bomb
victims. They have covered funerals like they never should have. The anchorpersons act less
like journalists and more like activists. Privacy rights are not their
concern because what they handle are public figures. It was nothing short of
a miracle watching the ailing president of the country return, breathe and
even deliver a speech or give an interview after counting all the diseases
these anchorpersons had claimed he had. How this public figure
definition is stretched in the corporate media only makes one cringe with
fear. What the journalists don’t realise is that as beneficiaries of this
market-driven media, they too have become public figures of sorts. This
qualifies them to forfeit their own privacy rights. A
tale of three Khans Years ago, in a television
programme, I heard Bollywood’s popular cabaret dancer Helen remark about
how the heroines in Hindi films had started dressing up in a vulgar way.
“Look, who’s talking!” was my obvious retort. Just then, she added,
“You see, in our times, it was only the vamps who wore revealing clothes.
That job is taken up by the heroines now.” Helen might or might not
have a point, but it is interesting to locate the exact moment you start
criticising your own clones. (Today’s heroines may not strictly be
Helen’s clones.) Often you don’t. You bask in your own faded glory or
the negative publicity these clones bring to you. When you finally do, it
has to be an unusual point in time. So, it was quite a sight
watching one Khan, the pioneer of morning shows of a certain variety in
Pakistan, appear in a television show and lambast her own clone, with whom
she happens to share her surname. In the show that was aimed
at making an example of this clone for her intrusions into the privacy of
the individual, the former Khan only proved my point — that the clone only
took off from where she had left. In her own show, the pioneer Khan had Yes, she did it
intelligently and may not have breached anyone’s privacy in the strictest
sense. But she did other things. In a talk show where she had been invited
to comment on her clone, she said many things that only proved she was the
trailblazer of obscurantism and hypocrisy on television — “These new
girls don’t wear dopattas; they shake hands with men, they do this, they
do that, while I never did…” Defenders of the pioneer
Khan say she was the original and the clones are but clones. How was she the original,
I ask? To me, as a viewer, she didn’t seem original at all. To me, she
looked like a clone of Hasina Moin’s dumb, bubbly, chirpy heroines who
captured the fancy of Ziaul Haq’s children, the young and old, men and
women of this entertainment-starved, Islamised country, in the late 1970s
and early ‘80s. In those days of strict
political censorship, the heroine of Hasina Moin (another Khan to fit the
description), cuddling stuffed teddy bear, was like a breath of fresh air.
Add at least fifty lbs, 15 years and a conservative worldview and the
pioneer host of the morning shows is born. Must we then blame the
clone Khan when the path of populism was laid out by those who came before
her? From inanity to conservatism to vigilantism is all but one connected
journey. Such is the society that we have created over the years. —
Farah Zia
As
serious as a critic? It used to be the
professionals’ domain. There were well-educated and well-informed culture
columnists in Pakistan, such as Safdar Mir (alias Zeno), I.A. Rehman, Hameed
Sheikh and Zafar Samdani, whose word was law for the common film and TV
enthusiast and it also influenced the product makers. Their reviews were
carried in noted journals — with the exception of Hameed Sheikh, who was a
broadcast critic — and, overtime, they developed a loyal base of readers
who, it is not hard to assume, took to their style of commenting (each had
his own particular style, for that matter) and also trusted them to give the
right opinion. Today, the situation is unfunnily different. With the coming into being
of the blogosphere, and the world of web becoming increasingly interactive,
every man jack with a computer and internet access — and, let’s say, an
opinion(!) — has become a sort of a ‘critic’. What’s more, they are
creating an impact. Correspondingly, the good ol’ print newspaper suddenly
finds itself without much clout. So, where does that leave the ‘real’
and trustworthy critic? Who should the responsibility to ‘influence’
opinions lie with, when everyone is sitting in moral judgment of things?
What will become of the seasoned group of commentators in time? The entire world is
debating to find the best answer to the above queries, as the new-age media
looks poised to take complete control over the traditional media. Websites
such as Metacritic are said to have already replaced printed criticism as it
famously rates films based on the opinion of a variety of reviews —
readers’ reviews included. At the same time, it is learnt that scores of
established critics at Newsweek, Village Voice and Newsday have either
retired or been laid off. Pakistan’s case may be
worse as it has lost most of its serious critics of film and TV either to
death or to other professions. Both our electronic and print media haven’t
been able to produce a credible second generation (of critics). And, from
the looks of it, they aren’t bothered. Why, because they know their
organisation’s name will carry weight where a writer’s byline doesn’t.
As film maker, academic
and critic, Mira Hashmi puts it, “Our TV is not quite regarded as a medium
with a lot of depth. I mean, it’s not serious work; it’s just fluff that
you’re watching at the end of the day. “As a society, we
don’t take performing arts seriously, so why take critics seriously?”
she asks. Again, the web world
paints a completely different picture. Here, a TV morning show is smothered
to bits and its host forced to apologise — or else face a termination —
when she strays into what is popularly derided as ‘vigilantism’,
parading the parks of Karachi in order to ‘catch’ dating couples. “The
privacy of a person’s choice is most cogent; they’ll ask for help when
they ask you,” wrote Lahore-based Mehreen Khasana in her much-quoted blog.
“I am mortified as a Pakistani when I see wardens of rectitude making
dangerous spectacles of common citizens simply to boost hits on their show
or to become shining role models for people of equally disappointing,
mediocre thinking. If that young couple gets hurt — which happens
inevitably as a result of your irresponsible moral policing — you will be
held accountable for reinforcing the sick obsession our society has with
prying and needling into privacy.” Mehreen is only 22, but
her mature and strongly-worded opinion set everyone thinking when it went
viral on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Judging a TV show or a
film on its technical or literary merits is a more serious job; it requires
“some knowledge of the medium, its technique as well as history”, as
noted film critic Aijaz Gul says. Mira seconds him, while
also revealing that she “is guilty of the same, because I started writing
reviews for The News when I was only 16. But soon I decided to go abroad and
study film production, theory and history.” However, she says, she
wouldn’t stop anyone who has seen a movie or is interested in films from
voicing their opinion, since “it isn’t a job of great responsibility. I
mean, you aren’t a public servant or a minister here, you can’t be held
‘accountable’. It’s just an opinion that you are giving. It is up to
the readers what they make of it. And, your opinion is only one among
millions.” Mira’s viewpoint
endorses the fact implicit in art criticism that opinion is what a critic is
essentially giving and no two critics — however noted and credited — are
expected to have the same opinion on the same piece of art. And, neither of
them is wrong. |Home|Daily Jang|The News|Sales & Advt|Contact Us| |
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promoted
and strengthened conservatism in a subtle but dangerous manner. She would
moralise and then she would moralise again. That is why, it was impossible
for the liberal progressive social media buffs, who are now up in arms
against the Khan clone, to watch the ‘pioneer’ Khan’s show. 
