The media’s role in mitigating crisis

The Pakistani media regularly comes under fire for its irresponsible reporting, lack of objectivity and its tendency to sensationalise serious issues. While criticism of the media is valid — indeed, the young industry still has a long way to go — it is important to recognise and acknowledge instances of the media doing its job effectively. One such example is the way the print, as well as the electronic media, brought public attention to the ongoing drought crisis in Thar. The desert district has been experiencing severe droughts for the past three years, with an alarming number of children having died from malnutrition this year alone. Droughts are nothing new for the region, which is an arid area, where people are almost entirely dependent on rainfall. But this crisis is more severe than previous ones and the media, along with local NGOs, went to great lengths to raise awareness of the issue and in doing so, create public pressure upon the authorities to take action. While authorities attempted to deflect responsibility and downplay the crisis initially, persistent media coverage eventually spurred them to come up with a plan of action.

There is, of course, still a lot of work to be done to solve the problem. A troubling story this week reported that people are resorting to suicide to escape poverty in the drought-hit area. There is still no long-term drought mitigation strategy in place, and while a policy on droughts was recently introduced by the provincial government, it is still waiting to be passed by the assembly, which could take months. The media should continue its good work on the subject and continue to follow the story until a more long-term solution to Thar’s problem is reached. Only by keeping the issue in the public’s consciousness can the pressure on authorities be sustained, and without such pressure, the government’s work on the problem might dwindle away.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2014.