A news anchor isn’t just a pretty face
‘Bottom feeders in the TV news industry’, ‘bimbos’ and ‘talking heads’ – that’s how I have often heard news anchors being described as. Some have even been accused of looking constipated on TV. Take my word – no news anchor deliberately puts on this expression on TV. Sometimes, it just happens! News anchoring in Pakistan is a relatively new concept. It emerged with the advent of cable TV news. Before the concept of sensational 24-hour Urdu TV news came to Pakistan, all one could find for decades was the poker-faced news readers only on Pakistan Television (PTV) news. In those days, they ...
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Female anchors, wear a dupatta for your own safety!
In a country plagued by many menaces – exploding sectarian violence, common man struggling for food, electricity and gas – the government has once again done an exceptional job of prioritising and combating the nation’s problems. The National Assembly Standing Committee for Information and Broadcasting recently expressed their concerns over the danger of female news anchors not wearing dupattas on air. Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira stated that, “Journalists are in trouble and we are ready to provide them with complete security.” I’m all for journalists’ rights and protection but I highly doubt a dupatta would act like a shield or a bulletproof ...
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Reporting on Gaza is about keeping the viewers at peace
“Follow the money…just follow the money.” The infamous dialogue said by Hal Holbrook playing ‘Deep Throat’ in the movie ‘All the President’s Men’ still holds a lot of wisdom today in understanding as to why the media behaves the way it does. So when I saw the onslaught of memes on Facebook and angry tweets crying foul on the biased coverage by the Western media on the Gaza issue, it made me think of old Deep Throat. News organisations worldwide claim to be bastions of objectivity, fairness, balance and accuracy; they have to. After all, who would watch a news channel that doesn’t ...
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Pakistani media: Making a terrorist out of an innocent man
On November 18, in the name of soi-disant sectarian fights an Imambargah in Karachi was attacked. The incident undoubtedly deserved media attention and so it received this with live coverage by various news channels. What struck me, however, was the way one of these channels treated the incident. While most news channels reported that the motorbike on which the bomb was planted had an illegal number plate, one of these channels decided to be over-efficient with some “exclusive” bits of information – the name and location of the man who owned that number’s legal plate. Despite repeated mentions that his motorbike was ...
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Why are Bollywood songs in my news?
Pakistan’s political scenario took an unexpected turn when Yousaf Raza Gilani was declared ineligible by the Supreme Court. However, what we got to see on our news channels were pictures of Yousaf Raza Gilani with ‘Yeh kya hua, kese hua, kab hua?’ playing in the background, repeatedly! The public was asked to wait until Friday when the new prime minister would be elected while the former prime minister’s decisions, expenditures and budget were being questioned. Yet, what we got to view throughout Friday were pictures of candidates for the prime minister position with some more songs playing in the background. What ...
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What exactly are we teaching our children?
I opened The Express Tribune’s online edition this morning and read a news report saying that an eighth grader shot himself. Out of habit, I then opened the online news version of Deutsche Welle, a German national radio channel and found a report on how an increasing number of juveniles in India were being implicated in cases as serious as murder. With instances where there have been juvenile terrorists, and in a time when children decorate the first rows of protests and young ones attack cars and burn tyres, there is little hope for these kids to grow into sane human ...
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Saudi official vs ASF: Who should apologise?
From minute-by-minute updates on PTI’s latest political gathering to ‘live’ score cards of the FC cup, social media brings you news and at times, before it breaks. With the millions of TV channels having spawned like bunny rabbits, each with its own version of a particular news story, its Facebook and Twitter updates that have started emerging as major opinion makers rather than the mainstream media. This symbolic transition to social media applications on smart phones and tabs provide a unique news-on-the-go and sometimes direct-from-the-horse’s-mouth experience. And that’s exactly how I caught the ‘Saudi military official beaten up at Islamabad Airport’ ...
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Radio in FATA: A foreign voice for local problems
During my job at a radio station, I got one of my listeners to come in for some questions. In came 60-year-old Haji Noor Zaman, who is from the Khyber Agency and was internally displaced due to the operation against militants. My first question to him was, Do you still listen to radio? He replied saying, Yes, I do, but only to the news bulletin of Radio Deewa. Radio Deewa is a US government sponsored radio station. Curious, I asked: So, what’s new up there? He said: America has diverted its cannon towards Balochistan and has built up a human rights case against Pakistan. He was hinting at the ...
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When to use or lose identifiers
Ethnicity, religion, sect and gender. Do we or do we not, as journalists, use these as identifiers in a headline or in the introduction of a story when we are reporting on an incident – that is perhaps a question that every journalist has to ask and the answer is never clear. When is it right to mention ethnicities or religion? Does it add any news value to a story or can it be the catalyst or inciting possible hatred amongst ethnic or religious groups? The question we journalists often ask is that if we do not mention these identifiers, are ...
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What the NATO Summit achieved
The Pakistanis came, they didn’t quite conquer, and now they’re leaving. At the end of the day, the NATO Summit in Chicago produced no news, and yet there was much to report. With hundreds of media personnel camped at the massive media centre at McCormick Place, the venue of the summit, the subject of the day remained Afghanistan and Pakistan. Reporters tried to work out whether Pakistan would announce the re-opening of the supply routes, an issue that has been raised in nearly every press conference that took place during the summit. All that work really was in vain – Pakistan ...
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