The lights are dimmer than we had expected and the set far more expansive. Its swiveling leather seats remain empty because the VIP guests are running late. On an old telephone, you can hear the MCR operator in Karachi frantically barking orders while the anchor paces the floor of the set, which a young man wipes furiously and repeatedly.
The engineers rewind and loop the opening bumper with its familiar, iconic refrains. The guests finally arrive and chuckle softly during their off-air discussion on the correlation between the length of dharnas and the arrival of divine wind-up orders via the rain. Suddenly, the clock strikes eight, the cameras begin to roll, and everyone is ready to go ‘live’.
So what is it that we are about to witness? Is it another installment of the most significant social dynamic to have emerged in Pakistan over the past decade? Or is it the latest performance of a grand spectacle, one whose faltering format is being held together by weakening props?
To find out, we began by assembling a cast. A grand cast of feudal lords and fake-degree holders seeking to bring them down, a cast of people who have dodged MQM bullets and IDF bombs, a cast of those who run the show and those with nothing to show for, a cast of ombudsmen and shining armored knights — a cast, in short, of journalists and politicians, assembled to explain how each has affected the other.
As we began, we felt we were about to present and unmask two sets of dueling charlatans to our readership, but as we continued and concluded, we realized that the story was not what it first seemed.
The Evolution of the Species
To begin with, no-one doubts the positive impact the advent of electronic news media, or rather news channels on the TV, have had on politics. Talat Hussain (Host, Live with Talat, Express News) describes the impact as decisive, with television conflating politicians with issues for the first time. Matiullah Jan (Host, Apna Apna Gareban, Waqt News) says that the quality of politicking has increased as politicians have had to face accountability, and Ahsan Iqbal (MNA, Deputy Secretary General, PML-N) reckons that the greater scrutiny has led to more transparency.
Qamar Zaman Kaira (MNA, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, PPP) says the journey of news has gone from hours to seconds, forcing politicians and institutions to start thinking and acting on their feet. He notes how even state institutions, such as his own ministry, have had to change as well.
“This ministry was designed according to the needs of a time long past. We need major surgery to equip it with the intellectual and technical expertise needed to deal with contemporary media.”
Hamid Mir (Host, Capital Talk, Geo News) celebrates the fact that the media ushered in the phenomenon of government officials being grilled for their negligence and apathy. In the eras gone by, Jamshed Dasti (MNA, PPP) tells us politicians bore the stamp of the elite and were unknown and unaccountable to the much-lamented common man.
Now, as Dasti puts it, they have been forced to become insaan ke bachay. Shah Mehmood Qureshi (Vice-chairman, PTI) notes that the media has provided a space and forum for politicians with substance and mettle to come forward and break out of conventional party dynamics.
Yet none of them are without their grievances either. Haider Abbas Rizvi (MNA, MQM) bemoans the najaiz tanqeed, the relentless persecution that politicians and politics are subjected to. Kamil Ali Agha (Senator, PML-Q) reminds us that the media, too, has had to mature, and has further to go in this regard.
Bushra Gohar (MNA, ANP) makes the eminently wise observation that despite all the hoopla surrounding private TV channels, radio still remains an extremely effective and far-reaching medium when communicating messages and policy positions to a wide range and diverse class of constituents.
In any case, when measuring the dynamics of the politician-media encounter, it is clear for any observer how politicians have become more polished since the advent of the news media; how they have learnt to present their cases rationally and how they have learnt to avoid an on-air faux pas.
Before our very own eyes, we have seen the rise of hitherto unknown faces becoming regular fixtures on the talk show circuit. We have become used to regular slanging matches as politicians vie for the upper hand in forty-minute shows.
We have watched with unease and fascination in equal parts as we realize just how beguiling this evolution has been. One anchor shares the story of the fire breathing talk show fixture Faisal Raza Abidi’s first television appearance, when he was so nervous that he requested that members of his family be allowed to sit within the studio during the broadcast so that he could look at them for support. Try and imagine Abidi needing any further moral support now.
All these developments have had their impact, and Talat Hussain estimates that the effects within parties have been profound, with them keeping an eye out for how well their members defend them on talk shows.
Yet almost none of the politicians Pique spoke to admitted to media appearances having any bearing on political careers. Perhaps, that was a consequence of the fact that the people spoken to had the media to thank for (at least some part of) their prominence.
So even when Haider Abbas Rizvi acknowledges the attention the media gives him, he dismisses its impression on his career, and it was the same for Kamil Ali Agha, Jamshed Dasti and Ahsan Iqbal.
But Ahsan Iqbal’s sonorous responses did let slip a crucial fact — he spoke of how the media created celebrities out of politicians and how such celebrity politicians could become a burden for their parties as such individuals begin steering the party in directions it may not wish to go.
Consequently, it seems that while being a media darling perhaps doesn’t deliver power, it does however provide a bargaining chip for career advancement that hadn’t existed before. It’s unlikely that any current or prospective politician across Pakistan can remain aloof of the influence of the media spotlight on a political career.
The Media’s (S)elections
They say the air in Islamabad reeks of political intrigue these days. Yet both journalists and politicians are keen to remind us that the impending elections which are generating this pungent pervasiveness of politicking would not have happened the way they will be — as part of a democratic transition by a government completing its full term — had it not been for the media.
In fact, Hamid Mir claims that this will be the first time in Pakistani history that the general elections would be held under the eyes of a private media. Lest we doubt his grasp of history, he explains that the 2002 polls only had two nascent but excited news channels attempting to make sense of their role. In 2008, Mir’s channel was still off the airwaves, while the most of the other channels were cobbling together their coverage after weeks of being blacked out.
Hence, 2013 will be the first time, in Hamid Mir’s opinion, that an unfettered media fed on experience would be let loose on the grand experiment of democracy.
Matiullah Jan adds a little nuance to this, explaining the dilemma of channels in 2008. He believes that back then, the news coverage had been swamped by the overarching narrative of democracy versus dictatorship, and so held hostage to this agenda, channels and journalists did not sink their teeth into the accountability of politicians the way they should have.
Circa 2013 therefore affords the opportunity to test how credibly the media can fulfill its function as a watchdog. Talat Hussain also points out how regional channels will really come to the fore in election season, with their expertise on local issues and candidates allowing them a level of influence that larger, national channels would struggle to replicate.
The politicians are clearly aware of this scenario. Kamil Ali Agha, answering this question while braving a blustery wind on the doorsteps of the National Assembly, can still barely conceal his weariness when he comments “it feels like these entire elections would be held on the media.”
Ahsan Iqbal concurs, pointing out that the confluence of a deteriorating security situation with increasing media coverage means that even local jalsas will be national events, with greater number of people ‘attending’ them from the comfort of their living rooms.
It’s not just the parties and politics which are about to change, but also government institutions.
The specter of the elections even brings forth the critical materialist in Haider Abbas Rizvi, who points out that the media has become a commercial entity rather than an institution of public awareness. He claims that the impact of this transformation would be seen in how channels cover political parties that buy a lot of advertisements on their airtime versus covering those who lack the money or resources to match them.
It is a sagacious insight as the balance between the need for advocacy versus the compulsions of advertising revenue streams is one each channel would need to make.
Yet for all this excitement, almost everyone is cautious about overplaying the media’s hand. Matiullah Jan says the personality obsessed coverage of politics means that issues and ideologies are repeatedly sidelined, and extensive media coverage only ends up reinforcing existing voting patterns.
Talat Hussain advises that we learn to differentiate between tactical and strategic voting. He explains that voters could disagree with a party’s national policies but will make their electoral choice based on their own constituency’s realities as well as their own patronage links of caste, biradri etc.
In fact, as Hamid Mir is keen to point out, had the media’s imagined sway been what it had been purported, their constant foretelling of the PPP’s demise would have come to pass. Perhaps, Matiullah Jan sums it up best when he says that the fear of the media greatly exceeds its actual powers.
Yeh Daagh Daagh Ujala
“We never had to climb up to the apex of credibility — we landed there when we started and have been going downhill ever since.” These words by Matiullah Jan might feel a bit self-righteous, especially since he is (in)famous for his crusades against corruption in the media itself, but nevertheless there is unanimous consensus that the media’s credibility is not what it used to be.
As Matiullah’s claim implies, part of that reason was the high status from where the media started off. After five decades of viewing the world, and especially their own country, through the suffocating and obfuscating frame of PTV, Pakistanis felt that the relative widening of the frame under private media stood for the gospel truth itself.
Any and every thing the media tried was something that hadn’t happened before, and consequently the clamour and hype continued to increase. Ahsan Iqbal calculates that the peak of the media’s credibility was around 2007-2008, when events such as the Lawyer’s Movement, the Lal Masjid Operation, the return and then assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Emergency and the elections were all iconic, historic events being broadcast across the nation.
Since then, he believes the audience has been fatigued by the media’s relentless pursuit of either ideological or more often commercial aims.
Bushra Gohar mentions how relentless policies of vigilantism and witch-hunts have led to a stifling of discourse with meaningful debates being overshadowed by sensational and tawdry scandals.
There are also the claims of biases towards certain parties and politicians.
Hamid Mir admits that there are times when he himself is saddened by his channel’s bias against the PPP. He recounts the troubles he went through to try and broker peace when the ruling party decided to boycott the Geo network, and how he eventually managed to end the impasse.
When Qamar Zaman Kaira is asked about this face-off, the TV in his office is quite fittingly showing the British sitcom Mind Your Language. Rising from his chair, he doesn’t mention the channel’s name, noting only that “certain people have their agendas. We never reacted to it; we only chose to ignore it. It was the public which reacted to it and made those people see the error of their ways.”
Channels themselves are aware of wearing their biases too proudly and have ways to massage their public perceptions. Talat Hussain points out that channel heads often keep a few off-message anchors onboard to give the channel an air of credibility while continuing to pursue a single minded agenda through their bulletins.
Two parties that are singled out for disproportionate coverage are the MQM and the PTI. It is alleged that the MQM’s control over Karachi, where most channels have their headquarters, buys them unique insulation from critique.
However, both Haider Abbas Rizvi (unsurprisingly) and Hamid Mir (surprisingly) dismiss these claims as biases held by non-Karachi journalists, and say that such allegations stem more from petty issues than fact.
As for the PTI, Shah Mehmood Qureshi argues that his party’s coverage is a consequence of both its popularity as well as the desire amongst the populace for an alternative to the major parties. Hamid Mir also acknowledges that Imran Khan’s unwavering stance on the war-on-terror meant that he remained an interesting guest even when he wasn’t considered a political force.
For journalists themselves, a common refrain when identifying the causes for the decline in credibility is the retreat to the studio. Instead of going out to do stories, Talat Hussain claims anchors have become safely ensconced in their climate-controlled studios, awaiting the story that the producer hands to them, and the puff the makeup team applies on their faces. Once on-air, according to Haider Abbas Rizvi, they seek to create sensation rather than stories and are no longer able to actually go and sniff a story out. Talat goes on to say that it is this very attitude that has also led to the spate of important anchors claiming their lives are under threat, adding that without follow-ups or investigations such claims are little more than attention seeking ploys. Furthermore, Hamid Mir also mentions the rapacious way in which anchors have switched channels, constantly running off with the highest bidders. As he quite wisely points out, if the people turn their backs on politicians who prove to be lotas, why would they not do the same with TV anchors?
Jo Bikta Hai, Sirf Vohi Dikhta Hai
If there’s one issue the interviewees mention repeatedly in terms of the media’s credibility, it is the nexus between big money and lazy journalists. After all, every channel has always been a profit-seeking enterprise; despite the sanctimony they are prone to displaying.
But for Matiullah Jan, “when news became commercialized, it became compromised. Today, the news space is shrinking as everything from comedy parody shows to breakfast and crime shows all weigh in on evaluating and presenting the news.”
Shah Mehmood Qureshi points out how the commercial strengths of federal and provincial information departments in doling out advertising revenue directly impacts coverage of the ruling parties and how even an event like Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri’s Long March was influenced by the cash sloshing around the channels’ coffers.
No incident reflects this finance-fuelled nadir for the media better than the Anchorgate scandal, when Mubasher Lucman and Meher Bokhari were caught on tape doctoring a show with business tycoon, Malik Riaz. It speaks volumes about the influence of money and the state of journalism in the country that both anchors swiftly found employment after having been sacked/forced to leave in the wake of the scandal.
So how did the media reach this position? Talat Hussain takes a leaf from Dante’s Inferno when he describes the four stages of the media’s cash-driven descent into a loss of credibility.
“Stage one was the stage of awe and bewilderment — when politicians were nervous Lilliputians in front of the camera and anchors styled themselves as Philosopher-Kings. Stage two was when politicians began to realize the importance of TV appearances and began to prepare their arguments.
Stage three was the advent of the circus, when anchors realized that they could set off fireworks by constantly pitting politicians against one another, forsaking any ethics or responsibilities in the process and garnering tremendous ratings and more money for their channels.
Stage four was when the politicians realized that they were the star attractions of the show and managed to switch the balance of power completely and were now able to manipulate their media appearances as they pleased since the talk shows were desperate to retain the cash cows they had cultivated themselves.”
The rush for ratings seems to have created a Hydra that threatens to devour news media itself. Media houses have begun to drop programmes and formats deemed unprofitable while the push for ratings has also meant that channels seek to prioritize violent stories and hyperbolic coverage over investigative reporting.
When he begins to describe this phenomenon, Haider Abbas Rizvi breaks off from his measured Lakhnavi persona to deliver a series of array yaars when speaking about his self-coined phenomenon, the Breaking News Euphoria. According to him, the hunt for ratings has meant that channels will spread fear and panic heedlessly even if the incident in question is nothing more than a burst gas cylinder.
But what seems worse still is that even though ratings are considered the Holy Grail in the industry, almost no-one seems to trust them.
Matiullah Jan claims the ratings game is excessively skewered towards Karachi in particular, leading to detrimental coverage for the rest of the country. Hamid Mir goes one step further, alleging that intelligence agencies and establishment proxies control the ratings data. His proof lies in the fact that his show’s ratings appear to plummet every time he does a show on a topic like Missing Persons or Balochistan.
The science behind the ratings is also attacked by all and sundry for having incorrect and insufficient methodologies, for being vulnerable to tampering and manipulation and for only covering the urban centres while ignoring the rest of the country. While these claims appear quite malicious on first glance, there is more to this story, too. (See Box 3)
Moreover, despite all their shortcomings, what the ratings do show is that political shows and news coverage is largely the obsession of the urban affluent. Data for audiences in nine cities in Pakistan shows that the richest audiences (SEC A) watch news-related TV a quarter (25%) of the time, while for the poorest audiences (SEC E) this figure drops to just 13%.
In fact, the drop-off from SEC B (21%) to SEC C (14%) makes it clear there is distinct class difference when it comes to the consumption of news. Moreover, other data shows that news channel consumption decreases even further in rural areas.
The uncomfortable truth that is garnered from such data is that while both anchors and politicians base their outlooks and spew their vitriol for highlighting the plight of the common man, the common man himself is not the one interested in watching their tamaashay.
In fact, it is the very elite living in bubbles and pontificating in drawing rooms — the ones that such shows love to bash — who are the ones truly enthralled by the media spectacle.
Hollywood buddy romance
So what are we left with, now that we consider what we have seen? When we had started this story, we had imagined an epic narrative, full of intrigue and treachery, showcasing two foes battling for supremacy. But while the anecdotes we gathered weren’t short of any spice, the narrative is no Bollywood epic.
Instead, it reads more like a Hollywood buddy romance, a coming-of-age story about two misfits whose confused, conflict-ridden interactions eventually help them overcome their failings and become better people.
After all, the exposure and opportunity presented to politicians has not only made them more aware of the demands of their constituents and countrymen, but has also taught them how to deal with a wider range of issues.
The media has brought to the fore topics few politicians would have concerned themselves with. Events which were previously forgotten in days now remain indelibly etched on the national consciousness and politics has had to adapt.
So it is little wonder that an electoral term watched over by an independent media has become the first instance in sixty plus years of trying when our country will see a democratic transition of power.
As for the media itself, it has also learnt the limits of its own power. No longer the omnipotent saviour it once saw itself as, the rush for ratings and the challenges posed by other mediums on television and beyond have meant that the long-awaited recalibration of priorities is slowly coming about. Channels and anchors are now both aware that hosting slanging matches and splashing breaking news banners no longer interests the audiences the way it used to.
It is still far-fetched to imagine the media embracing stone-cold sobriety but there is a realization that these elections could be the last time the media can enjoy the prestige it seemed to have been born with. And that may not be a bad thing at all.
The writer is a journalist based in Islamabad.
The case of Dasti and the Sheikh
There are two seemingly contrasting tales that continue to furnish the spectrum of the media’s power in terms of an election. On one hand is the case of Jamshed Dasti — one that was quoted by every single person interviewed for this piece. It is not without reason either, as the fake-degree holding Dasti was forced to resign his seat and then contest it in the face of an unprecedented barrage by the news media.
Channels, talk shows, tickers and op-eds all had trained their sights on the MNA from Muzzafargarh and yet he left them all with eggs on their faces as he coasted to an electoral victory. Speaking to Pique, the man whose profile shot to the skies after this incident is intent on gorging himself on humble pie, insisting he has forgiven the media and holds journalists in the utmost respect.
Yet, he summons all his grace to gently remind us that the voters in his constituency were greatly angered by the media, who were seen to be supporting his “feudal opponents and (their) perpetual oppressors”. If Dasti doesn’t gloat, it is because he doesn’t need to. His election victory was when the penny finally dropped for a lot of journalists and the media began to realize that even though it might rule the roost in the big metros of Karachi, Lahore and the rest, there is still a country out there that has its own points of view.
But if Dasti’s election victory tells one story, then Sheikh Rashid’s election defeat seems to tell another. According to the Lalkurti Lothario, he lost the 2010 by-elections due to a disastrous appearance on Capital Talk two nights before the polls. Yet, the man Sheikh sahib blames — Hamid Mir — doesn’t share the same narrative.
According to the Capital Talk host, the media had anointed Sheikh Rashid as the winner before the votes were even cast. This was partly due to the fact that the Sheikh was the media’s darling and partly because he was purported to have support from the Presidency.
Yet a visit to Raja Bazaar and the rest of his constituency by Hamid Mir revealed a populace angry at their representative’s betrayals. As Mir puts it, their only achievement was compiling a playlist of clips showing Sheikh’s various flip-flops during his tenure. Even though the programme had an iconic impact, in the eyes of Hamid Mir the show can’t take any claim in the electoral outcome, simply because it articulated the desire of the voters.
And perhaps, there lies the kernel of truth that brings both these stories together. Whether it was the misstep with Dasti or the homerun with the Sheikh, it seems that the media’s power lies in its ability to articulate the pulse of the people. The image of kingmakers therefore, is one that is grossly exaggerated.
Geo aur jeenay do
Hamid Mir admits that there are times when he himself is saddened by his channel’s bias against the PPP. He recounts the troubles he went through to try and broker peace when the ruling party decided to boycott the Geo network.
Qamar Zaman Kaira doesn’t mention the channel’s name, noting only that “certain people have their agendas. We never reacted to it; we only chose to ignore it. It was the public which reacted to it and made those people see the error of their ways.”
Live leaks
Politicians and the media have come together to change both the political and social dynamic of large parts of this country in an irrevocable manner. But along the way, they have also provided us with many a good laugh and a few gasps of barely believable television. Here’s list of the most notorious of those moments.
The Glass is Half Full: The PTI is often accused of being overly optimistic, so perhaps it is understandable that its one-time President in Sind, Naeemul Haque, once took a half-full glass during the middle of a live talk show and flung it at his opponent. Fortunately, no tsunamis were triggered that time.
Firdaus Apa Gets Gangsta: Firdaus Apa is one politician who deservedly fronts her own meme on the Internet and there are many tales that embellish her legend. But during one live show, she seemed to adopt the stylings of a particularly vicious gangsta rapper, going off on a tirade about how the comely Kashmala Tariq was something that rhymes with ‘a bore.’
Wasi wassup? Or to be more precise, where were Wasi’s hands? Smack in the middle of one live show, Wasi Zafar, the one-time law minister, felt the need to scratch an itch. Unfortunately for him, and the viewers, that decision turned out to be a major balls-up.
Fondle Minister: One from the early days of the private media, this clip showed a future prime minister of Pakistan sneakily using the back of his hands to cop a quick feel of a future ambassador to the U.S. of A. As he would learn in his future career, this was another thing he didn’t handle well.
Buried Alive: In the midst of the immensely chaotic, tragic and wildly passionate burial ceremony of the PPP’s grand matriarch, Nusrat Bhutto, the intrepid Interior Minister Rehman Malik still brought out a smile from all of us, as he somehow managed to fall into the empty grave before the body had been buried. For someone used to coming back from the dead, exiting the grave was only an embarrassment and little else.
Nervous cheetah
One anchor shares the story of the fire breathing talk show fixture Faisal Raza Abidi’s first television appearance, when he was so nervous that he requested that members of his family be allowed to sit within the studio during the broadcast so that he could look at them for support. Try and imagine Abidi needing any further moral support now.
Doctoring the show
No incident reflects the finance-fuelled nadir for the media better than the Anchorgate scandal, when Mubasher Lucman and Meher Bokhari were caught on tape doctoring a show with business tycoon Malik Riaz. It speaks volumes about the influence of money and the state of journalism that both anchors swiftly found employment in the wake of the scandal.
Rating the raters
TV ratings in Pakistan began way back in 1981, with Gallup using what is known as the ‘diary method’ where respondents are asked to recall which shows they watched. The Gallup surveys are still carried out but they have shrunk in importance and their methodology has been criticized for giving dated and unreliable data.
In 2005, the Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) pushed for a more scientific method and the Peoples Meters system was brought forward by a company called Media Logic. In this system, electronic dials were installed in a select number of households which could give real-time data on viewing figures.
However, the Peoples Meters has brought forth its own set of controversies. Rafi Abidi, a media and advertising industry veteran, talks about how the sample size has been a continuous issue. A publicly available third party audits have also shown there have been methodological shortcomings in the technique behind the Peoples Meters. Moreover, the interviewees in our main story alleged the ratings were urban centric and the data could be bought off, tampered by channels or controlled by authorities.
Salman Danish, CEO of Media Logic, has some interesting answers. He points out that people have several fallacies about the ratings systems. For starters, Media Logic has never claimed it provides countrywide ratings but rather the ratings for nine major cities — an increase from the three cities they had started off with.
He also mentions that while a lot of people get hung-up on the fact that 675 meters are used to create ratings for a population in millions, the fact is that viewing data for each household member is recorded separately.
In actual numbers then, the viewing preferences of more than 4,000 people (using an average of six persons/household) across different classes, ages and backgrounds are recorded.
Danish insists this is a very large sample for the kind of research being done. Moreover, one anonymous executive associated with the industry also pointed out that neither broadcasters nor advertisers have been willing to pay for increasing the net needed to get more accurate data.
The most likely reason for that is that a wider net of data would be more beneficial for the ratings for smaller, regional channels and would thus mean a loss of business for the larger channels who can afford to invest in better ratings.
As for the question of data tampering, there seems to be an open secret within the industry that one media house had discovered a household which had a meter installed. According to several sources, the media house bribed them with flat screen TVs in exchange for higher ratings. When they were found out, Media Logic suspended their ratings for several weeks.
Despite that, there is a trust deficit for other reasons as well. According to a report by Aurora, “The bulk of the controversy is related to two issues: erratic spikes and drops in ratings; and the delay in the delivery of data (Media Logic delivers the data with a one day time lag).” Despite the paranoia, Rafi Abidi doesn’t believe the data is tampered and the faults lie with the methodology more than anything else.
With regards to news media and talk shows, the rating does show some interesting insights. While 2007-08 are often remembered as the most blockbuster years for the news media, Agha Ali (Business Manager at Maxus, Group M Pakistan) claims that 2009-10 was the peak for news media consumption and it was only the summer of 2012 when ratings began to fall considerably. Ali adds that the top talk shows still have enough advertisements that they need to turn down extra offers but says that these figures and offers have been dropping steadily.
