Highlighting economic issues: how media has let us down

Almost none of our mainstream media houses has done us proud when it comes to economic and financial reporting. From the way economic and financial issues have been covered since independence, it’s apparent that not much thinking goes into it. In fact, the entire edifice of economic reporting looks incidental in nature, rather than being deliberate and well thought-out.

Have our editors ever deliberated upon such vital matters as how to deal with confirmed and chronic tax evaders? Should such violators of law be treated in the same manner as any law-abiding citizen must be?

A related question is: how appropriate is it for the media to cover extensively viewpoints of the retailers and traders who mount protests or issue persuasive and provocative statements for the sole purpose of avoiding paying direct taxes? If yes, should their pictures and videos be published and telecast as well? Is there any wisdom in treating them on a par with, say, teachers who have not been paid their salary for six months?

It’s been observed that in the absence of prior instructions on the matter, most economic reporters write about the chronic tax evaders as well as their protests and demands in somewhat sympathetic terms. Thus, the editors’ carelessness — rather thoughtlessness — unwittingly and inadvertently turns their newspapers into “powerful well-wishers” of the untaxed sectors. And their readers, because they are never schooled in the virtues of good citizenry, never learn why we should oppose every move aimed at short-changing the nation.

Let’s turn now to an issue on which most media houses seem utterly confused — the not-so-small matter of state-owned enterprises, like PIA, which turn in losses by the billions each year. Everyone knows that disposing of such organisations (by privatising them) makes economic as well as financial sense. Yet the media seems reluctant to advocate their prompt privatisation. What could be the problem there?

Well, one major reason could be the journalists’ reluctance to have anything to do with rendering people jobless. They know that PIA or the Pakistan Steel Mills is massively overstaffed and that whoever will buy it will definitely lay off hundreds, if not thousands, of people in order to make it profitable.

However, what the media needs to understand is that people who would be laid off as a result of privatisation would likely be less proficient than those retained by the company’s new owners. In other words, merit would prevail in such a situation; that’s precisely how it should be.

Secondly, people who once landed plush jobs because of their contacts with influential persons in high positions, or because of their political clout, cannot be pampered all their lives, especially when doing so would ruin the national economy completely. Such opportunists may have enjoyed an easy ride thus far due to their connections, but that needs to stop simply because our debt servicing requirements (interest payments) now account for more than half of our total budget outlay.

We have often seen newspapers mount sustained campaigns in favour of human rights and against encroachments. Some newspapers actually take pride in upholding gender equality just as others do in promoting democracy (as opposed to military rule). But have we ever had an instance in which a newspaper launched a sustained drive for eradication of all tax exemptions? I think there’s been no such instance although campaigns could have been launched on several important issues like that.

Another big let-down has been the journalists’ failure to explain to the public the horrors of the national economy in easy-to-understand terms. A big factor that played into that particular deficiency was all our leaders’ reluctance to call a spade a spade, particularly in the last five or so years. Had our leaders been more forthcoming in this regard, the media would just have played up their statements and the public would have gotten the message.

However, our leaders never got the nerve to declare in plain terms that the “national honeymoon” was over and that each member of the public would have to earn their keep now. In this regard the one (proverbial) platform the PML-N shared with the PTI was their “common failure” to look straight into the eyes of the voter and declare: “It’s now become vital for all the sectors to pay (direct) income tax; so no (tax) exemptions from now on.”

Because no national leader, including those in the uniform, had the guts to say that in public, it had become incumbent upon the news organisations to do so instead. But alas the journalists failed miserably on that score, just as they have done in several other areas as well.

One vital issue on which both our leaders and media houses have kept mum is the “disastrous and continued use” of imported products by the rich people of our woefully poor country. An insightful analysis posted on social media very rightly pointed out that Pakistan has had to seek bailouts from the IMF for more than 20 times simply because it has never been a productive economy.

The members of its elite have made money either through such unproductive activities as real estate business or corruption. The folks who collect money through such means often feel the need to flaunt their wealth. And what better way to do so than to spend money generously on buying expensive products from international brands such as Nike, Apple and Mercedes.

However, because the country is perennially short of dollars as it exports products worth only about $30 billion each year and imports essential products of a greater value, it should be extra cautious when it comes to spending dollars on importing luxury goods. That’s why our leaders should put in place policies that make it difficult to import the products for which we do have cheaper local alternatives. Why should imported shampoos be sold openly in our Jinnah Super Markets and Saddar Bazaars when local shampoos of good quality can do just as nicely? This is yet another area in which our media needs to educate the masses.