The MQM and the media

Media Watch

“The arrested target killers belonged to the ANP, the PPP and another political party.”

–News Bulletin Copy on a major TV channel

The media’s relation with the MQM draws out as spirited a debate as a discussion on the MQM itself. And the former debate draws heavily from one’s respective views on the latter debate.

It is the media discussion, however, where MQM supporters have to play on the back foot. Because whereas the MQM rally (a one-of-a-kind event in Pakistani politics) can be defended by emphatic oaths regarding how the attendants are there of their own free will, the bit about the blanket coverage on all TV channels is a harder sell, even for those who haven’t ever set foot in the city and don’t know the city’s dynamic. Why would the TV channels, almost all of them in tandem, give coverage to the routine telephonic address by the party’s leader – especially, at the expense of not only ad revenue but also upsetting the line-up of regular programming?

All the TV channels have large offices in the city, if not the channel headquarters themselves. Even in non-Karachi HQ channels, the largest fleet of marketing executives operate out of here. The party can make life pretty uncomfortable in the city. Much is made of the PPP and the ANP adopting the methods of the MQM. But that is true only to the extent of armed wings and the protection rackets. Not election fraud or intimidating the media.

When it comes to the media, these other two parties can be trashed endlessly without any risk from them. The PTI might now claim to have shaken the MQM’s hold on Karachi politics, but it was the ANP – a party in on the bhatta networks, with its own share of musclemen – that did not really take media criticism badly, which started slowly chipping away at the ossified code of Karachi reporting’s dos-and-don’ts; ditto for the PPP’s muscled enforcers. This served in finally creating an air where ridiculous statements like the line mentioned in the beginning of this article started being phased out.

But then there are those who have a soft spot for the MQM. Their explanation – sheepishly offered – is that many TV control rooms are manned by individuals who are the party’s fans. And since no journalist is truly objective, there is bound to be disproportionate representation. A fig leaf of an explanation, but one that doesn’t explain the behaviour of Lahore-based channels! It even doesn’t explain the level of control the superiors at the Karachi-based ones were exercising.

There is, however, another explanation that eludes everyone but the ones who have ever worked in even a marginally senior position in a TV channel or, for that matter, newspaper. Content is determined, in a lot of cases, by a lack of it. Certain slanted pieces in newspapers might be interpreted to be the paper’s stance though, in reality, its placement might be a simple case of a lean day of filing by the reporters and the news agencies. Since there are pages to be filled and if there is an already slickly written, tightly edited item ready to be placed, why not?

This issue is further amplified at TV channels, where there are hours upon hours of dead air to fill. This is where the MQM, which has the best media centre in the country, comes in. As opposed to an address by the leader of another political party, where the channels have to send their DSNG vans, the MQM simply beams over the live feed to many channels directly. This saves the channels the cost of coverage, it provides content and, since all the other channels are also covering the event, they won’t even look out of place.

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Do kindly check out the Committee to Protect Journalists’ report on the murder of Wali Khan Babar, written by Elizabeth Rubin.

It makes for a chilling read. The MQM will, of course, dispel it as propaganda. The report mentions the brave reporting by former Pakistan Today staffer Tariq Habib.