‘White’ authority in Pakistani media – by Mazhar Arif
Most of the decision-makers in North American news and entertainment media are White. Media ownership is mainly concentrated in the hands of White males; White journalists dominate the mainstream media; and White people hold most creative positions in the entertainment media as actors, writers and directors. All these factors contribute to the prevalence of “Whiteness” in media, and help to reinforce White privilege as the norm.
Most mainstream media content also reinforces White privilege by featuring White characters and addressing White interests and experiences. When programming does feature non-White characters, they usually appear in supporting roles. News and information media also demonstrate the preponderance of white privilege. In the early 1990s, the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) surveyed the makeup of the guests on ABC’s Nightline. It found that 80 per cent were professionals, 89 per cent were male, and 92 per cent were White.
FAIR also found that on PBS’s MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, 90 per cent of the guests were White, 87 per cent were male, and 67 per cent were current or former government officials. A 1996 survey conducted by Women, Men and Media found that subjects interviewed for the evening news were predominantly (75 per cent) professional White men. As well, 86 per cent of American network news was also reported by White men.
When one looks at the media, both print and electronic, in Pakistan, one finds similarity between American and Pakistani news and entertainment media as there are also a kind of “Whites” who dominate mainstream media, people from particular ethnic and linguistic groups hold important positions and these people promote and protect privileges and interests of particular groups. Then, it should not be surprising that out of top 100 columnists and anchors in Pakistan , more than 50 are from Punjab based in Lahore or Islamabad-Rawalpindi whereas 25 to 30 are Urdu speaking from Karachi , Islamabad and Lahore . Among them, 12 to 15 are retired civil and military bureaucrats largely from Punjab .
In Pakistan , mainstream media centers i.e. Karachi , Lahore and Islamabad are located at the boundaries of the country and reflect culture, lifestyle and aspirations of the people living in those big cities and again which are largely dominated by particular ethnic and linguistic groups i.e. Urdu speaking in Karachi and Punjabi speaking in Lahore and Islamabad . Big majority of the population living in the mainland and speaking different other languages are not represented in the mainstream media.
Majority people get coverage in the regional newspapers, only. Private TV news channels report rural-central Pakistan as Western media report black Africa —something unusual and bizarre for “educated urbanites” from tribal-feudal society. TV channels, and print media also though with very few exceptions, completely ignore the struggle of the mainland people for their social, cultural, economic and political rights. Long marches of Sindhi people for their water rights, demonstrations by Seraiki people for land rights and large protest rallies by peasants even in Punjab for the ownership of land they are cultivating for the past one century are no news for the mainstream Urdu and English media.
Owais Mughal, in his article “Sindhi newspapers in Pakistan ” writes, “One topic which I have consistently found appearing in bold in Sindhi newspapers is about the irrigation water. While Urdu press does not mention irrigation issues unless there is a flood or severe drought. Water flow measurements at Sindh barrages make regular appearance in Sindhi news. Every few days I see a news item showing concern on depleting water levels at Guddu, Sukkur and desert like conditions downstream of Kotri. It shows that sharing of river water is a matter much more serious for Sindh than it gets its share on national media. This issue gets such a unanimous support in Sindhi press that I have not yet seen a single editorial in support of building new dams like Kalabagh etc.”
Nationalist political parties and their leaders hardly find any space in mainstream media. One could imagine the difference of belonging to different ethnic groups that when MQM’s leader Altaf Hussain addresses party workers from London , he gets live coverage. However, one would hardly see any Sindhi, Baloch, Seraiki or Pakhtun leader on TV while addressing large public meetings in their respective regions.
Baloch people have their own grievances against the dominant media. Malik Siraj Akbar, in an editorial in The Baloch Hal Online, describes media situation in Balochistan that the people of Balochistan were forced for a long time to read newspapers that were headquartered outside the province and had a friendly stance towards every government. Unwilling to carry a single editorial or op-ed page article on Balochistan for several months, these newspapers never tried to raise the voice of the people. They did not protest over the military operation or the killing of Baloch leaders. They overlooked the violation of human rights. The only interest these newspapers had was to get official advertisements and supplements from the Directorate of Public Relations (DPR), an organ of the provincial government, and Press Information Department (PID), a department of the federal government.
With the induction of electronic media revolution, Balochistan’s issues should have been reported more regularly in the private news channels. On the contrary, the true picture from Balochistan still fails to make ample space in the so-called national electronic media. There are very sad but valid reasons for the blackout of Balochistan’s problems in the national media: The owners of private news channels and the big guns in the powerful political quarters seem to have developed an understanding that young, qualified Baloch journalists should not be given jobs in their Quetta offices.
Even some journalists do not endorse the “White authority” attitude in the media. Shahid Ilyas in an article “Do not hate me for who I am!” (Daily Times, 30 June, 2010) laments, “Going by the rhetoric that one comes across from a host of media, including e-mails, the internet, TV shows, blogs and personal conversations, it is very disturbing to see the level of hatred which the youth in Punjab (is it only the youth?) —exceptions notwithstanding —harbour against personalities like President Zardari, President Karzai, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Mahmud Khan Achakzai. On the other hand, a soft corner in their attitudes is discernible for Qazi Hussein Ahmad, Nawaz Sharif, Zaid Hamid, Hamid Gul and Pervez Musharraf.”
Senior journalist from Peshawar , Ismail Khan, in his article “Role of ethnic media” (Dawn, 30 May, 2010) wrote, “ Punjab is still in a state of self-denial. As gunmen, lobbing hand grenades and firing automatic weapons killed 79 worshippers, all that television anchors and those sitting inside the television studios were keen to find out from their reporters covering the carnage in Model Town and Garhi Shaho was the ethnic identity of the assailants.
“How were they dressed?” asked one newscaster. “They were wearing shalwar kameez,” the reporter responded. “And they looked like Pathans,” the reporter added. Even after the police claimed clearing up the two places, anchors remained curious. “Are they locals,” asked a senior anchor who conducts a 50-minute show on one of the leading news channels.
Well, they must be disappointed. The main suspect in custody, Abdullah, turns out to be a Chachar from Rahim Yar Khan. Does this make the crime the gunmen have perpetrated by less? Had the perpetrators turned out to be Pakhtuns, which everybody in the electronic media so keen to find out and establish, would that have made the bloodbath any more tragic? Sadly, the Punjab and for that matter the mainstream media, dominated by many television anchors who happen to be from Pakistan’s largest province, have still not gotten it.”
Source: Viewpoint
That’s why I like LUBP, you guys have a team covering the hundred or so report worthy stories that come out of Pakistan. And that’s part of the problem that there is a serious deluge of news reports every day out of all the corners of Pakistan, that journalists have to fight to get their local stories covered. I try to cover all the interesting conflict stories in Pakistan, but Balochistan slips me by except for the intermittent story, because there is just a constant stream of news coming out of Karachi, Fata, the flood zones. Do you guys have an update on the investigations (or non investigations) on the spate of murdered leaders in Balochistan?
For my part, I wrote this update; there is a reason for the profane language; because the stream of bad news from Pakistan is unending:
http://theselongwars.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-had-been-meaning-to-get-to-this-but.html
@TLW can you please contact us at [email protected]
WOW ! its a matter of fact ! its a dilemma of Pakistan ! All One language Speaking Media person Very soon Broken my sweet country . ya saray clean shave punjabi taliban apni harkatoo say pory dunya mai poison ka spray kar rahay hain they are not Allow to Other language person any seat accept batman !
Even the judiciary has come to understand that there is nothing they could do to subjugate the mandate of the people, and they have to accept the supremacy of the parliament. Now its turn of media to understand their limits and to know that they are just another pillar of the state, but not above any accountability, and they have to be respectful of the parliament.
In the TV programs like Hum sub umeed say hien, Hasb-e-Haal, and other comic programs, these TV channels are ridiculing the members of parliament. They are doing parodies of them, playing Indian songs behind their pictures, poking jokes at them, and calling them outright idiots. They are not even sparing the President and the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
But why this double standard? Why are not they doing same to the generals and the judges and the journalists? Why this hypocrisy at the end of the media? Are they afraid of them or they are just prejudiced and biased?
The media is free to criticize government but it should act responsibly towards state and democracy. It should respect the parliament, president, prime minister and other members just as they are respecting (even out of fear and prejudice) the chief of army staff and the judges.
No journalist, in recent past, has ever said there should be control over media, nor can they say so. May be, some journalists might have expressed dissentions on the fictional news like “Zardari is sacrificing a goat each day to shun evils” or “Zardari is shivering in President’s house” while he remains silent. While Pakistan is faced with host of problems the media, instead of addressing those crucial issues, is wasting prime time on such flimsy fictional issues. I am not a fan of Zaradari, but even to me the above Meerasi-ism by some of the media men looks so cheap. Media is running like wild horse without any reins since 2008 election and government’s policy is clear “let it be”. I do not know the basis of the authoress perception that caused her this fear and cry. It is a matter of great concern that the impact of the media in our society is not positive and satisfactory. Over a period of time, the ingredient of responsibility has gone missing from our media activists. Television programmes need to be handled with more care to ensure a stable mindset and promote a healthy thinking pattern amongst the more impressionable in society.
Now let me discuss the danger of Pakistani media, which we all know has been heavily funded by the US media and the neo-cons of the world. ARY, Express TV, Geo, News are the major forgiven funded and some are affiliated televisions, who’s job is to keep Pakistani public opinion in the hands of few talking heads and milliners TV producers and anchors. After showing the Pakistani peoples death, destructions, lynching, target killings, gang rapes, child molesting and cleaning the charred bodies and pieces of Pakistani civilians body parts been cleaned off and loaded in trucks like the dead stray dogs or animals, they all end the news about some Indian movie star’s sexy dances or the news about the hollowed movies and the entertainment. This media is keeping Pakistani people in constant stage of anxiety and sadistic stage and are not becoming the part of the solution they are becoming the part of the problem by inviting the same old lying scum of the earth political trash and giving them the opportunity to keep protecting their Mafia bosses by making up stories and lying so many times and on so many different channels that after a while the people are loosing the difference between truth and lying.
Pakistan media is trying to be the alternative to the government and instead of pointing out the corruption and giving their full support to the Judiciary and law and order institutes and strengthen them instead of setting up their own parallel charity organizations and making themselves as the alternative to the government.