Follow up, please

News has a short shelf life. Generally, after a 24-hour loop on television, it is considered stale unless a significant development occurs. Fair enough. But some stories are not a one-time event that can be pushed back into obscurity. Certain stories do merit a follow-up.

Remember those two children who died after eating food at a restaurant in an upscale Karachi neighbourhood and candy from a stall outside an amusement park in Karachi? Would you not like to know who exactly is held responsible for their deaths? What we already know is that 36 samples of food were dispatched to the Punjab Forensic Science Agency.



The police obtained the medical reports which stated that the deceased children had ingested subnormal quality of food due to which they had suffered food poisoning that led to their deaths. Ultimately the cause would only be settled after the microbiology report is released. It would then be evaluated by a panel of doctors that will be set up. As we get into 2019, I hope we will receive updates. I will wait.

Now let me jog your memory from slightly earlier events in the year. The disastrous incident from August 2, when 12 schools were burnt overnight in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer district by unidentified assailants. Do you recall this? Probably not too well. At least half of the schools were girls-only. Books had also been thrown outside the schools and set alight. Soon after, the chairman of a Senate committee, Rehman Malik, took notice of the incident and asked the G-B chief secretary to deliver a report. He said those found involved would be severely punished. So… after four months, what do we know about those burnt schools? Were they rebuilt? Did the girls move to another school? Did their parents decide never to send them to school again out of fear for life? Did someone donate books after they were set on fire? Were the perpetrators punished? There are so many follow-up questions that can emerge out of this one incident. Questions, if answered, could outline so much about our judicial system, the affectees of Diamer, and the efficiency or incompetency of the relevant government ministry that was to produce a report on the matter.

This, of course, is not an isolated incident. News is full of stories that build our appetite but don’t provide the fodder to satiate us. As the country was preparing for general elections in July, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide attack leaving at least 20 dead in Peshawar. This included Awami National Party’s Haroon Bilour. According to the Lady Reading Hospital, 63 people were injured in the attack. It was considered the deadliest militant attack in Pakistan for 2018. And it must be, given the number of those injured. Because those injuries are usually not minor burns from a flying splinter. They include losing vision, limbs, developing a hearing impairment or being paralysed for life. Not to mention the emotional and psychological wounds the trauma of witnessing people die entails. After four months, we do not have a single story in the media about a compelling, tear-jerking, spine-chilling story of a person that survived the Peshawar attack. Did no one witness a child die? No one lost the means to earn livelihood because of any impairment? How is that possible? Well, till media managers don’t let their reporters and editors know that enough of the political he said, she said. Enough of the PML-N versus the PTI. We will make airtime for the survivors and their stories and let the world know how severely our own people are affected by acts of terrorism.



Follow-ups help us give context over a longer period of time. They demonstrate for us the cause and effect. Just because we stop reporting an event does not mean that its effects dissipate. Of course airtime is not infinite, and every story cannot be trailed. That is an editorial judgment with media to perhaps give people a conclusion of news stories that strike a chord with them, a tad more than the rest. And stories that have a grave human aspect to them must not fade into oblivion.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.