The Paranoid Pakistani Television Talk Shows

[ferrari]

I've started this thread to discuss the TV talk shows in Pakistan where the hosts of the show act in a irrational, biased and paranoid manner.

I start with a article in Dailytimes about such talk shows.

Tragedy of the talk shows
—Elf Habib

The shows obsessively promote the political circus splashing the spicier rhetoric and sensation. Their anchors, contrary to the common norms of calmness, insouciance and neutrality are often quite agitated, flippant and biased on certain issues. Some are almost too rapacious to devour their guests

The private channels in Pakistan have come a long way since CNN was first introduced by Benazir Bhutto to allow us “a window on the world”. They have become largely independent, even defied some of the Musharraf edicts and played a pivotal role in his ouster. Their strength to stir frenzied hysteria on various partisan and controversial issues like the restoration of the judiciary was witnessed during the Long March. They fiendishly flagellate the federal policies and performance, nonchalantly promote the Opposition and repeatedly project a coven of the dictator’s coteries, retired generals and bureaucrats as political and defence wiseacres, analysts and commentators. Even the politicians utterly pounded in elections are routinely solicited to swipe the state of current events. But their morbid infatuation with the fundamentalist, obscurantist and jingoistic notions and an inveterate apathy towards any rational approach, thought and realities is far more rattling to the saner elements.

Even Islam, persistently proclaimed as the leitmotif, lacks an evolving and enlightened interpretation essential for interaction and survival in modern pluralistic societies. A programme on a local television channel, for instance, eulogised the Taliban enforcement of standardised beard brands and compulsory prayers as great reforms in Afghanistan. The media naively ignores that immense resources required for a real welfare cannot be sustained through poppy trade, scuttling the transit supplies or mercantile fleets but can only be generated through modern education, skill and expertise. This in turn, can only be achieved through cooperation with the advanced industrialised Western states and not through alienation or confrontation against them. Yet they reinforce hatred against the West incited by the mullahs and dictators for their combined disdain against democracy and the inevitable evolution in human thought and culture.

Similarly, the mullah myths that the world is divided into Muslim and non-Muslims and that almost the entire world is continuously conspiring against Muslims are also fervently perpetrated. Our flubs and failures are also invariably imputed to our enemies rather than to our own weird vision, priorities and policies. India and Israel are particularly blasted for our miseries. No sincere attempt is made to squelch the suspicion, angst and attitude knowing well that the democracies like Britain, France and Germany have left behind the bitter hatred of several bloody wars and millions of deaths and are fast forging a larger single community. We, in contrast, have been squandering our resources trying to match our might against a ten times larger neighbour rather than caring for the vital needs, welfare and happiness of our masses and to diffuse the militancy and fissiparous fights.

An irrational angst against the US, evident in lambasting American policies and intentions, like the outburst on Kerry Lugar Bill, is another nauseating preoccupation. American policies are more ruthlessly anatomised in Pakistan than in the American media, which is rather more dominated by sports, cinema and celebrity gigs. We rail against this biggest donor that even interdicted the Indian onslaught with the famous “hands off West Pakistan” Nixon gesture. We would rather have the US conduct all its actions in accordance with the wishes of our mullahs, media magnates and anchors. The drone attacks are another irritant being consistently castigated as counter-productive and avoiding any dispassionate analyses of their impact in remote, inaccessible hostile and torturous terrains. Drone attacks, of course, are said to turn useful if they are conducted by Pakistan, implying that the problem really is not with their attacks but with their possession and ownership.

Touting the nuclear weapons as the most marvellous and sacrosanct achievement worthy of all human and socio-economic sacrifices is another media passion. Contrary to the global norms of accepting the people as our prime national asset and resource, the media has ironically glorified the nuclear arsenals as the national assets (asaasay). Nuclear stocks and the Taliban were, in fact, edified as the two great national assets. The Taliban trove has already turned devastatingly toxic making one shudder at the fate and future of the second asset. The media, of course, never emphasises that the largest nuclear stocks on earth could not save the Soviet Union from splintering, secure the safety of Israel or procure food, fuel and medicine for North Korea. They were no deterrent against the debacle and ignominy at Kargil, Taliban terror, the tension following the Mumbai carnage and the begging bowl syndrome.

Unfortunately, the media rather than illumining the need for building modern affluent industrialised welfare models like Scandinavian states or Britain has been acquiesced into advocating the medieval militaristic obsession. The modern welfare states evidently need a continuous and extensive investment in education, research and skill forming and the public welfare projects for which the defence expenditure has to be rationalised to not more than a fifth of the national budget. But the media has never ventured this vital and critical orientation. Nor has it ever highlighted the need to spruce the non-productive expenditure, the multilayered bureaucracy, overlapping corporations, excessive taxes and utility costs. It flagellates the authorities for lack of food, water, sanitation, fuel and power facilities without revealing the real reasons for the chaos or building pressure for their rectification. It even rarely bothers to guide the public on some ordinary mundane matters like traffic, cleanliness, cottage industries or initiatives for livelihood.

The shows obsessively promote the political circus splashing the spicier rhetoric and sensation. Their anchors, contrary to the common norms of calmness, insouciance and neutrality are often quite agitated, flippant and biased against certain issues. Some are almost too rapacious to devour their guests. One anchor petulantly ranted why a certain point so passionately felt by her was not explicated during a foreign visit; another anchor declares himself to be the number one columnist of the country; while commemorating ZAB’s martyrdom, one anchor had also invited a scion of the prosecuting family. A bubbling anchor, known for her characteristic shrill aggressive tone, was hooked on hydrogen bomb. The selection of guests, experts and the issues is also quite ambiguous. The largest political parties like the PPP and PML-N are often equated with the palookas like the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Some guests are allowed to perorate at length while others are repeatedly and relentlessly interrupted. The exasperated viewers often feel that the anchors should rather swap their seats. Some talk shows are just the anchor’s rudderless screeds.

Despite such evident bias and thrust, the channels never declare their political affiliation or sympathies. The Western media giants like the Fox, CNN and Guardian are openly known for their commitment and affiliation facilitating the viewers to understand a particular viewpoint. In Pakistan, ironically, each channel claims to be independent and impartial masking its true colours and association. Parallel to a dictators’ penchant to be apolitical, espousal to a particular party or thought still remains a taboo with the media giants. Enlightened citizen’s fora are thus needed to evaluate the media programmes. The media’ representative councils and official watchdogs similarly also have to be energised to replace the ruinous stranglehold of the clergy, emotions and the establishment by a more rational and realistic content and purpose.

The writer is a freelance columnist

[ferrari]

Here another one from DAWN

Zia’s revenge

By Irfan Husain
Saturday, 28 Mar, 2009

ON my all-too-brief visit back to Pakistan, I have been flipping local channels to catch up on events. I have found new ones to watch, although not necessarily for any length of time, given the generally low quality of the fare on offer.

The other evening, I caught a panel discussion featuring a gentleman who used to be in the foreign service, together with a couple of other talking heads. The discussion was about last November’s lethal terrorist attacks in Mumbai. When I switched on my TV, the gentleman was confidently asserting that the knowledge of downtown Mumbai the terrorists seemed to possess made it clear that they could not have been Pakistanis. From this shaky theory, he leaped to the conclusion that they must have been Indians who had been trained in their country, and then brought to Pakistan before being put on a boat that took them to Mumbai.

I had scarcely managed to digest this brilliant argument before another panellist, a senior lawyer, chipped in with his stunning contribution. According to him, the killers could not possibly have been Pakistanis because had they been, they would not have attacked Mumbai, but would have gone for Delhi’s Red Fort. 'Why would young Muslims from Pakistan be interested in Mumbai?' he demanded. 'They don’t know the language there, and surely they would not have gone there to ogle Bollywood actresses.' Both expressed their outrage that our government had accepted that the attacks had been launched from Pakistan.

In one discussion on minorities, a Pakistani Sikh guest told the audience how he had once been forbidden by a local maulvi from dangling his feet in a stream as Muslims downstream might use the water to perform their ablutions before they prayed. He also complained that he was not served tea at roadside dhabas because other customers might object to drinking from cups that had been used by a non-Muslim. An angry maulvi on the panel tried to reassure the poor Sikh that Islam enjoined its followers to treat minorities well.

On another evening, I caught a bit of a solo discourse by a gent who thundered: 'Allah’s curse be on those who criticise Pakistan! I want to tell all Pakistanis that before long, their current trials will be over, and we will soon re-conquer India!'

During such surreal discussions, many anchors fail to challenge the outlandish views being expressed by their guests, or ask them to produce evidence for their assertions. On the contrary, they are invited to explore their bizarre notions at length.

I have begun to realise the extent to which our media has become an active player in Pakistani politics and society. During the recent movement to restore the chief justice, millions of viewers across the country were mesmerised by the sight of the black-coated lawyers poised to take on the power of the state.

The problem with this kind of in-your-face TV journalism is that moving the camera into the action makes the crowds seem much bigger than they are. Also, in a competitive, pressured environment, there is little time to reflect on events and what they mean: the audience wants to know what’s happening every minute of every day. And to offer opinions, there are armies of pundits waiting to get invited to TV studios to hold forth. Most of them are retired diplomats, generals, judges and civil servants who are happy to leave the tedium of their lives for the glare of publicity. Unpaid, and with no professional reputation to protect, many can (and do) get away with the most absurd views.

In most cases, we do not really know who is behind which channel. Judging from the extreme views being pushed on many of them, the source of funding takes on a slightly sinister overtone. For years, question marks have hung over several journalists, and whispers have done the rounds tying them to our ubiquitous intelligence agencies. Given the role of these organisations in Pakistani politics over the years, I would not be surprised to learn that they are financing some of the channels that have proliferated recently.

Another problem is to do with the qualifications of the anchors and hosts of the many talk shows on offer. Selected for their looks and fluency rather than for their knowledge and education, they are ill-equipped to challenge their loud and self-confident panellists. When somebody voices an opinion as a fact, the anchors let him get away with it because they just do not know any better.

My personal theory is that their lack of a grounding in politics, economics and current affairs is a direct result of the poor education they have received. Without wishing to be lofty or patronising, I can safely point to the poisonous brainwashing an entire generation has been subjected to during the Zia era. Already reeling from Bhutto’s nationalisation of education, millions of Pakistani children then had years of religious studies rammed down their throats by Zia. This was supplemented by reactionary propaganda aired by state television and radio. In those days, there were no private channels to break this monopoly of the airwaves.

The current generation of Pakistanis reaching positions of authority and influence is the product of this brainwashing. Of course many have escaped its worst effects, but unquestionably, public discourse in Pakistan has moved to the right, and we now wear religion on our sleeves to a greater extent than ever before. Secularism is now a label few are willing to accept, even though many privately agree that it’s the only way Pakistan can rejoin the rest of the world.

When private channels first began operating in Pakistan’s stultified environment, I had hoped it would be a liberating force, opening a window to the world for millions of Pakistanis. In reality, it has worked to serve the opposite end by reinforcing existing prejudices, rather than challenging them. Owners of channels have their own concealed agendas, and poorly educated producers and hosts do little to separate opinions from facts. (Daily Dawn)

irfan.husain@gmail.com