OP-ED: Journalism in Pakistan

—Ejaz Haider
Not just the delicate thing called honour but nothing that is worth doing at all and therefore worth doing well can be the function of stupidityShakespeare could have been talking about Pakistani newspapers when he wrote these lines in Julius Caesar: “When beggars die, there are no comets seen/ The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes”।If you don’t believe me, take a look at our newspapers. A big fish can say the most absurd thing and that idiocy will be treated as a gem and find a place on the front pages of our newspapers. On the other hand, news of a seminar on language, for example, will begin with the statement by the chief guest (often, neither the chief guest nor the statement will have anything to do with the topic) and end with the line “journalist Khaled Ahmed also spoke” even if it’s Mr Ahmed who has held forth on the etymological and philological complexities of the issue. Why and how does this happen? Here’s why.Say the prime minister comes to inaugurate a health conference. At the first opportunity, reporters will try to extract from him something political: some question about the LFO or Pak-India peace process or some such thing. The focus will shift from health to politics. The doctors and other specialists at the conference will be sidelined. A couple of reporters will be assigned to cover the conference itself, but while the prime minister’s political statements will make it to the front page, with the appendage that he spoke at a conference, the news of the conference itself, the real issues discussed therein, will get thrown on the inside pages.Of course, it helps if you happen to be the information minister or the DG-ISPR, in which case you (if you are either one or the other, God bless you) can get away with murder; gaffes don’t even count. In any case, it is our national pastime to shoot ourselves in the foot and then put that injured foot in our mouth.Newspapers across the country are stuffed with people to whom, if I had enough money, I’d present a copy each of H L Mencken’s essay on “Journalism in America”. It is amazing, if you shear that great essay of references to America, how accurately it depicts the state of journalism in Pakistan. I cannot do better than to reproduce some of its memorable lines:“Most of the evils that continue to beset American journalism today [are owed] simply and solely to the stupidity, cowardice and Philistinism of working newspaper men. The majority of them, in almost every American city, are still ignoramuses, and proud of it... All the knowledge that they pack into their brains is... a mass of trivialities and puerilities; to recite it would be to make even a barber beg for mercy. What is missing from it, in brief, is everything worth knowing — everything that enters into the common knowledge of educated men...A man with so little intellectual enterprise that, dealing with news daily, he can go through life without taking in any news that is worth knowing — such a man, you may be sure, is lacking in professional dignity quite as much as he is lacking in curiosity. The delicate thing called honor can never be a function of stupidity.”It is these people, dear readers, who provide you information and act on Shakespeare’s ‘advice’ without most of them having ever read Shakespeare. Like old hands in low professions, they learn on the job. This knowledge is, invariably, denuded of all the finer things in life and even common decencies and courtesies. Predictably, when you learn that way, you are conditioned to reflect the practices, prejudices and predilections of the older generation. This is why reporters here have never learnt to write a well-structured report (most can’t write to save their lives) and sub-editors go through the diurnal grind giving more importance to inane statements than real news.Let me give you a very recent example. Two days ago our Under-19 team won the Junior World Cup; yes, they won it, and it’s a first for Pakistan. Not a single newspaper (except The News which had a puny item tucked in the lower half of the front page) put it on the front page (in this newspaper, it couldn’t even make it as the top story on the Sports page!) Why? The conventional (and I dare say, collective) wisdom of the newsroom says Jamali and Musharraf making a pledge to fight terrorism or discussing some important matters of state (whatever that means) is more important than the Under-19 team lifting the Junior World Cup trophy! Clearly, not just the delicate thing called honour but nothing that is worth doing at all and therefore worth doing well can be the function of stupidity.

Ejaz Haider is News Editor of The Friday Times and Foreign Editor of Daily Times