The Media Code of Conduct

The code of conduct that eight television channels agreed to on November 6 has received deafening applause. Given that the plaudits are coming from the mainstream media itself, I'm not particularly inclined to take them very seriously. The code was a long time coming and while The News today patted itself on the back for its "emerging maturity" it failed to mention that the code saw the light of day only because of the threat of government interference.

Don't get me wrong. I do not agree with the amendments the assembly was going to make in the PEMRA Act. The clauses forbidding any talk prejudicial to the ideology and sovereignty of Pakistan (whatever that means) and anything that ridicules the head of state, armed forces, bureaucracy or judiciary were blatant attempts at censorship. But the media has not been very responsible in exercising its newfound freedom.

The code addresses some of the media's shortcomings. Violent images will not be broadcast and more care will be taken in verifying facts and reporting hostage situations live. But it remains unclear how binding this code really is. Reading the Dawn report one gets the impression that it is not. It repeats ad nauseam that the the code is just a voluntary guideline. In fact, the words "voluntary" and "voluntarily" appear eight times! Does that mean that these channels can disregard the code whenever the please? Will there be no comprehensive system of regulation, no penalties for infractions? Apparently not.

This supposed sign of maturity seems more like a puerile publicity stunt. A ploy to get the government and the public off the media's back. And even then the media failed to mention in its "voluntary guidelines" any resolve against advocating violence. The pogrom against Ahmadis that Aamir Liaquat Hussain's show of 7 September 2008 sparked does not seem to sit very heavy on the media's conscience. Freedom of speech has its limits and preaching violence against human beings is beyond the pale. Preaching the murder of Pakistani citizens on national television is nothing short of abominable. But the media has not even paid lip service to preventing such deplorable incidents.

I don't think this code of conduct is good for much. Ideally, the government, media and civil society should sit down and come to an agreement on a code of ethics, which should be made into law and enforced by a regulatory body through fines and penalties. The code should be precise in wording (like the media's code of conduct not the assembly's proposed amendments) but it should also be binding. If the media is serious about its role as the fourth pillar of democracy it has to step up and accept the responsibilities that come with the job.

Thrown to the wolves

Charming, open and conciliatory, Hillary Clinton did very well by my estimation in her conversation with the Pakistani press tonight. Meeting with so many fiercely anti-American journalists at once might have seemed suicidal but she pulled it off. Clinton admitted to America's past mistakes, to Bush's blunders, to America's part in creating the Taliban and expressed the Obama administration's desire to "turn a new page" on Pak-US relations repeatedly.

She addressed the Kerry-Lugar Bill fiasco reasonably well, too. First, she admitted that America should have been more sensitive to Pakistan's reaction and then pointed out that (a) the conditions attached were normal consistent with aid bills to countries like Israel and Egypt; (b) they were also binding only on the US government and not Pakistan; (c) American legislators had to explain the massive $7.5 billion aid to their constituents, who in such hard times would want the money to be spent at home, making these kinds of checks necessary.

The journos – one from each major news channel – all seemed fixated on Kerry-Lugar and one after another repeated the same worn out question about the gap between her friendly words and the imperial designs of KLB. When asked this the umpteenth time she lost her cool, declaring very emphatically that Pakistan is free to refuse US aid if it so pleases, that America was not forcing Pakistan to accept it. The exasperation behind the comment was counterproductive but otherwise Clinton kept her own.

All those bloodthirsty town halls she put herself through on the election trail last year really paid off. The six journalists tonight turned out to be no challenge for her at all. Her Pakistan green blouse was perhaps a bit much but at least she managed to placate the anti-America camp in my family. Am curious to see what the rest of Pakistan thought...

Of Pakistan's New Media and Old Firebrands

It is a brand new world here in Pakistan. Under the new democratic government, the media seems freer than it ever was before. The play Chicago was up at the Pakistan Arts Council for eleven nights and was sold-out all eleven times. I went to watch it on Saturday and came out thrilled that such a risqué piece of theater was actually allowed here. Bold dances, sexy clothes, and unabashed references to sex! The audience, laughing and clapping through the entire play, absolutely loved it. And I, with more than a little wonder, thought that this would never have been possible five years back.

I also went to see the latest Pakistani movie Ramchand Pakistani over the weekend and was once again pleasantly surprised at how unconstipated its attitude towards sex and sexuality was.

The same is the case with the new TV channels and radio stations that have been flourishing over the past couple of years. Najam Shiraz’s new song Khwabon Ke Rishtey is a case in point. His music video deals with the problems teenage girls face from unwanted pregnancies and cheating boyfriends to sexual harassment and parental neglect. I won’t go so far as to say that his video deals with these things in a meaningful way but just that these taboo topics can be touched upon is something remarkable to me.

But really, underneath the face of an apparently free press, there is actually rampant self-censorship. While governmental interference is no longer something of huge concern to the media, the specter of an irrational mullah mob chanting Allah-u-Akbar and waving pitchforks and torches does send shivers down its spine.

I tell you this with such authority because I have been working at Dawn TV for the past month and have witnessed the self-censorship firsthand. There is an old man at Dawn TV, who looks like a relic from PTV of the fifties, called Censor Uncle. He watches all the shows before they air and checks to see whether the content will ruffle any fundo feathers or not. One talk show was forbidden from discussing abortion and another from mentioning that alcohol was legal before Bhutto went fundo in the 70s.

It is deplorable that the media feels compelled to censor itself when talking about simple historical facts or important social issues. So perhaps these new franker conversations about gender, sex and sexuality have to be put in the context of crazy Taliban burning down girls schools in Swat and vigilante groups of burqa clad women kidnapping Chinese masseuses. The mullah mob is able to bully the new freer media into self-censorhsip because of the government’s ambivalent attitude towards religion-motivated vigilantism. The media would naturally protect itself rather than offend the crazies and find itself facing their wrath without any government protection.

Some may ask why it is so important to protect the media’s right to talk about sex anyways, especially since it makes most older Pakistanis extremely uncomfortable. Well first off, on the matter of principle, because freedom of speech means letting people talk about things that you do not like or agree with. Secondly because this traditional taboo on sex and sexuality prevents us as a society from having an honest debate and spreading awareness about women’s rights, sexual abuse, STDs, AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, family planning, rape, LGBT rights, sexual harassment and so many other issues. The new media can help us overcome our national prudishness but the government has to help it too by protecting it from the vigilante violence of the mullah brigade.