Pathetic Plight of Media in Pakistan
By Mujahid Hussain, New Age Islam
21 May 2014
War within media is on
rise in Pakistan. It seems that the continued conflicts among the
national media outlets will come out with flying colours. Because the
way they are strengthening themselves against each other is an isolated
and unusual phenomenon. At a time when they were in their initial stages
of progress, they got into inevitable trouble.
We could give it a
pass if it was just a matter of a particular media organisation, but it
is rather related to the collective vision of Pakistani media.
Unfortunately, we have no holistic view of the matter as yet, because
the foreign elements continue to exert full power and influence on our
media. As for the argument that the Pakistani media outlets are
engrossed in an intense business rivalry feeding this turbulent
situation, I don’t think this is an isolated incident in Pakistan. A
healthy competition among media to vie with each other in excellence and
better performance can be found in any part of the world, but what I
haven’t seen anywhere else is media’s fierce fighting to the extent of
eliminating each other in Pakistan.
Regrettably, our
perception of rivalry is that we can only conquer our rivals when we
completely eliminate them from the world. This attitude is shown in all
our disputes and controversies, be they social, political, religious or
sectarian. We are always on the lookout for an exclusivist and
totalitarian conquest.
Without delving deeper
into the issue, one can easily see that the Pakistani media miserably
failed to meet the expectations of the people. Most media outlets in
Pakistan are still far away from basic news values like freedom of
projection, impartiality, fairness and objectivity. They are steeped in
greed and bias so deeply that that they are reluctant to move forward.
Given the present state of affairs, we have to foresee what is going to
happen next.
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