A public broadcaster

The kind of political circus we watch on our TV screens is not unique to Pakistan. The media around the world suffers from this disease, thanks to the increasing influence of advertisers on the news. Decades ago, when TV was establishing itself in the US, networks used to run their news departments as a public service, often at a loss. Not so anymore. Given the immense success of Fox News – it is currently the highest rated cable news network in the US – media outlets across the world have tried to mimic that model. Pundits in Pakistan love to bash Fox News and its tilt towards the American religious right, but do they consider that almost all our channels are like Fox News?

Are the rants that we hear on TV every night, prime time, any different from Glenn Beck’s frothing or Bill O’Reilly’s culture war? Are our “senior analysts” any less guilty of pulling facts out of thin air than Sean Hannity or Neil Cavuto?

But what we are missing is a reliable, independent public broadcaster. Consider that in the US, there are public broadcasters like PBS and NPR that are doing stellar work, providing people with the kind of sober and nuanced perspectives that they are not likely to find on the cable networks. The BBC, that peerless institution, runs on public money, collected through TV licence fees.

Why can’t our information ministry let go of PTV? Why can’t we bring in executives and producers that can turn our public broadcaster into the balanced, reliable source of information and analysis the way other countries have done?

The media revolution in Pakistan has brought many positives with it, and has changed much of our national attitudes for the better. But the lack of ethics and the rat-race to be the first to put out the news, even if that news is inaccurate or even made up, means that everything on private TV news channels has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2010.