The showbiz of sorrow

As I often do before writing my column, I turned on the television the other day to listen to the latest headlines. The first one up was about the bus accident in Faisalabad. Undoubtedly, this was a tragic incident. I couldn’t unsee the terrifying scenes of the accident: the blood of the corpses and injured, the heart rending wails of the bereaved…
I lost my sleep and the misery haunted my brain. Usually, I watch local and/or international news broadcasting channels till 1 or 2 am at night but I was left unable to watch anything else after watching these dreadful scenes. The news kept running in front of my eyes but I was incapable of taking it in. If I tried to read the words on screen, I couldn’t comprehend them. I was seeing something else with my eyes but my mind’s eye only saw the scenes of the fate of those innocent children.
I spent the night in a state of extreme disturbance and melancholy. When I woke up in the morning at 8 and switched on the television for the 8 o’clock bulletin, my senses were again assaulted with news of the tragedy. The coverage had shifted from the place of the accident to the houses of the victims. The scenes were of the families’ mourning. Wailing women, sobbing elders and distraught classfellows of the unfortunate departed.
I then thought to shift to some entertainment channel to lift my mood. I shifted to an entertainment channel which was running a programme where Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza were to appear as guests. I thought this might be the pick-me-up I was looking for. But the anchor then decided to regale us with the sordid details of the disaster in a tone most morbid. Her tone was very critical and it might have been correct to adopt that but that wasn’t what I was interested in at the moment and it seems, Shaista Wahidi was in no mood to provide me the dose of cheery goodness I was looking for.
I turned to the papers as my last resolve and vowed to avoid news items discussing the accident and captures of the scene. This scheme worked and I escaped the lugubrious spell cast by this news and turned to more upbeat and comical news items such as the huffing and puffing of our enraged and indignant leaders at the US’ aggression towards us. As a journalist, I know how these very same leaders address American officials when directly in contact with them. Some of them have children studying there on scholarships. Some have farms. Others have money stashed in American banks. Others’ charity organisations are the recipients of dollar dole-outs of the Americans. And no one can (or wants to) account for the millions that are received in charity. The more vehemently a leader spews venom against the US, the more eggs they have in American basket. They are merely trying to raise their stock; much like the way Pakistan tries to avow ‘sovereignty’ in attempts to get more aid.
Anyways, between reading newspapers, chitchat with friends and hanging out the club, I whiled my time in a great manner and stayed far from the idiot box. Even though it is my habit to keep checking the television for the latest breaking news. But I couldn’t bring myself to switch it on in the evening. I just read the articles I had marked for later perusal. I had to write this column the next morning. I had already made up my mind to write about the cruel way these channels cover news. And as soon as I switched on the TV before penning this, make no mistake, the loop of the same horrifying scenes was still on there.
Despite my attempts at evasive action, I couldn’t escape the images. The mood which I had tried to pick up was now even lower down in the dumps. And my feelings had intensified. I write this column in the state of grief that our TV channels our perpetually subjecting the entire nation to. You must recall for how long the channels had covered the death of the wife and child of a police official whose house was attacked in Karachi. Veritably, it was a great tragedy. And if the incident had taken in a place like Switzerland or Sweden, it would have merited such prolonged, uninterrupted coverage. But in a blighted place like Pakistan, where more or less carnage takes place on a daily basis (with mosques, schools, markets being bombed, target killings taking place, human being blown to smithereens, with walls soul-searingly being stained with bloods and human debris), this might not be the professionally balanced way to cover this troy.
If we were to think about it, each one of the children lost to terrorism is as dear to his parents as that police official’s child. Each child, from Karachi to Peshawar, has the right to be grieved like this. But we can’t possibly accord this right. All we can do is broadcast the news of any tragedy or accident. We must refrain from covering them in this sadistic manner. News channels cover tragedies the world over. The victims of each accident, wherever it takes place, were befallen by an unfortunate fate. Their blood is spilt too and they, too, have families that mourn them. But one would be hard pressed to find a channel going overboard in its coverage of the incident.
You can go over the coverage of any tragic accident. They may show a wide camera shot of a train or bus that collided or an aerial view of an accident. If there could be no coverage of the place itself, they might show you the destroyed vehicle or airplane. There might be scenes of rescue teams being active there and you might see some covered corpses at the most. Nowhere will you see scenes of the ravages of death and pitiful state of humans that will keep you in sombre state for long.
The people who ordain such coverage should look at what it’s leading to. They should begin at home and see what their own children and families go through after witnessing such scenes. Man or woman, old or young, avoids watching such dreadful scenes. Death is, indeed, something bad. But how many days do we remember it? If somebody’s face is disfigured by an accident, his kin are respectful enough to cover it. But our channels go so far as to show decapitated heads. Do they not know the rage and disturbance such broadcasts inspire?
Each accident where people lose their lives is painful. But to incessantly broadcast the accident in such an insensitive manner is the same as spreading the malaise. The bandage and dressing of a wound is not merely to heal it. But also to shield it from human view and not to constantly remind one of the pain the wound causes. Where it is appropriate to hide a wound and where to reveal it, I think the people in showbiz should have a fair idea.

The writer is one of Pakistan’s most widely read columnists.