Is the global media fair to Pakistan?

The News, Sun, March,28, 2004.

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema



Prior to responding to the above mentioned question a more important question that needs to be looked at is whether or not media can be objective. Theoretically it may be possible to have an objective media but practically it is impossible for media to be objective though there are many instances in which one finds concerted efforts are being made to be objective. It would indeed be inappropriate to tag the entire media as objective or biased as the world media consists of varied elements. The media can be grouped into two categories of print and electronic media. While the electronic media consists of radio, television, and internet, the print media also has two distinct sections consisting of dailies and non-dailies.

Compared to dailies, non-dailies can easily afford to be relatively more objective than the dailies as they have sufficient times at their disposal to undertake necessary research. Admittedly almost the entire print media is expected to be guided by whatever is the agreed editorial policies or the guide lines set by the owners which could include both the financial attraction and quest for influence. If the owner is a political individual or a particular party, then it is easily comprehensible what to expect. Even if the owners are not politically motivated and profess to uphold the standards of objective journalism to the best of their abilities, even then to expect a totally fair coverage is indeed not a very realistic pursuit.

Many factors contribute towards the motivational slant of both electronic and print media. Among them four needs to be highlighted here and these are directly related to nationalism, environment, lobbies and domestic developments.  The first important factor that rarely misses to make contributions revolves around nationalism including too much emphasis upon nationalistic streaks. Media in almost all countries tend to be nationalistic even though some elements may claim to be objective and unbiased. Indeed there is some difference in degrees of emphasis and bent. In some cases the stalwarts may be professing that they are honest in projecting the exact development but then the development is present in such a way that it tends to project negative aspect more pronouncedly than the positive side of the story. A story covering a bomb blast inside church compound would convey a different meaning than if the same story is listed under the heading ‘A bomb blast inside the Church’. If the word compound is dropped then almost everyone is going to understand that there was a bomb blast inside the Church building itself, which can invoke stronger reactions and varied kinds of responses.

Both electronic as well as print media tend to reflect nationalistic streaks in many ways. The tendency to protect one’s own interest is somewhat natural among the humans. Ever since the nation state system has replaced the territorial state system, the tendency to justify our own nations pursuits have regularly surfaced. If the media is in the hand of the opponents than one expects critical evaluation of policies. But even then efforts are made to avoid damaging the national interests.  To glorify and to justify national policies or attitude is something that has been frequently demonstrated in almost all societies.

The second source of major contributions towards the adopted slants is the product of prevalent environment. The tragedy of 9/11 radically altered the existing environment and drastically changed the attitudes. Most western societies now generate the impression that they accept and believe in general in the over projected intolerance of Islamic societies. Many in the west believe that all the extremists are product of Islamic societies. An acknowledged distinction between a freedom struggle and a terrorist movement is gradually eroded and all freedom movements are now projected as extremist’s movements especially if these happen to be pursued by the Muslims. The most unfortunate development is that even the acknowledged freedom movements like the Palestinian struggle and the Kashmiris freedom movement are now presented as movements with heavy contents of terrorism by most elements within western media.

The rules of the game have changed after the tragedy of 9/11 and the policies have begun to be more assertive and aggressive than what was the case before. Consequently the policies pursued by the Americans clearly pointed fingers towards the Islamic world. The new policies blatantly began to target the Islamic world. Not only an international coalition to combat terrorism was born but also Afghanistan and Iraq were also quickly invaded. The resistance in both Afghanistan and Iraq is raging fiercely which, in turn, is giving birth to varied interpretations. Most newspapers, TV networks, radio chains within the western media initially justified these invasions but later it began to question the rationale.

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq and inability to secure stable Afghanistan often gives birth to strange interpretations. Admittedly the Commissions of inquiry are being set up to find out what went wrong but media rarely   pointed out or even attempted to search why the concerned people put the blame on somebody else. In fact media helped and continues to help in finding scapegoats in order to facilitate their governments. Frequently attempts are made to put the blame on Pakistan in order to cover their own inability to secure stability in Afghanistan by both the Afghan as well as American officials.

The third factor that effectively reduces the level of objectivity is the activities of the concerned lobbies. In many countries of the world the lobbies contribute a lot towards the building and damaging of target country’s image. Some lobbies are relative more active then the others. For instance in US the Jewish and Indian lobbies are far more active than the other similar interested groups and lobbies. The ownership of a TV network or a Radio chain or Newspapers facilitates the pursuit of carefully carved out objectives.

Sometimes two lobbies join hand together against what is perceived to be a common enemy. In such an eventuality the resources of the two lobbies produce quicker results. Undoubtedly lobbies work to project a particular point of view and to make things difficult for an adversary. The collaborative efforts of both Israeli and Indian lobbies against Pakistan manifested in the production of a difficult and complex situations for the Pakistanis. Many key players like Senators/Congressmen in US came under their influence and began to buy lobbies point of view rather than making individual efforts to ascertain truth about particular development. Partly such attitudes are product of sheer ignorance and inherent prejudices against a particular country or society. While it is true that lobbies work in close collaboration with the media, the media itself is constantly searching for news and stories and finds the work of lobbies as a much-desired facility.

The final factor that takes a heavy toll of media’s objectivity are the domestic developments of far reaching consequences. This factor works in both ways. An outsider finds the adverse developments as the much-needed fodder for the story whereas a local media would be confronted with a situation to sift carefully what to project and what to ignore. For an outsider if the adverse developments are taking place in the target area or society, he does not hesitate to make a quick capital out it. Determined to denigrate the target country, adverse developments make their task much easier.

While there is no doubt that the foreign media is not very objective and fair towards Pakistan for reasons mentioned above, one cannot escape the fact that many internal developments provide sufficient fodder to those who are determined to paint Pakistan as black as possibly they can do. The poor economic development especially in terms of not being able to attract direct foreign investments, increasing internal violence coupled with frequency of acts of terrorism and our tolerance of extremism, our past association with Taliban and Talibans’ ability to capitalize on sympathetic elements within Pakistan, the use of our border areas by the terrorists, the past disruption of democracy, and the recent revelation of nuclear proliferation are just some of the developments that tend to provide grounds to attract negative coverage.