Everyone around you has an exclusive story
“Aap sahafi hain? Mein apko aik dou aesi batain bataonga jis se apka nazariya badal jaiga.”
(You’re a journalist? I’ll tell you a few things that’ll change the way you see the world.)
For any newbie journalist who is trying to make a mark those words can bring great joy. Who wouldn’t want information that’s so powerful it could change the entire country, right? However, scoops that we get from random folk are generally like the tasteless sandwiches of regret you eat after realising that there are no free lunches in the world.
For someone who’s been around a couple of years those words are nothing more than a broken old record. Not many journalists can claim to have not heard them, and several have heard them enough times to instinctively cringe each new time they’re spoken. The first wave of truthers hits you as soon as you join the industry.
The Taliban story
There are the good Taliban and the bad Taliban. The good ones like long walks in the park, caramel ice cream and hugs, while the bad Taliban will blow you to bits. If you haven’t caught on yet: the good Taliban are fictional. However, in Pakistan almost every other person has hidden secret facts only privy to them. They know things about the Taliban that the Taliban probably don’t know about themselves. And since you are a journalist it is your duty to sit and listen to all of these secrets and potentially put them into your articles and do one of two things: 1) Watch your career take off like Mubashar Lucman’s, or 2) Watch it burst into flames. There is no guarantee of either outcome.
Imran Khan’s antics
Imran Khan is most probably the only true Pakistani leader to grace the country’s political scene after Mehmood Ghaznavi. Despite the promises he’s made over the course of his campaign and his subsequent failures for some, the man is infallible. A PTI truther will sit you down and tell you about Immi’s time under the stars, he prefers to sleep outside. He eats with his servants and likes to spend his days praying. He also loves animals. A truther will basically try to tell you all these inside cute little stories that no one else seems to have witnessed or believes. The main aim? To convince you that Immi ji is actually a very down to earth, humble fellow, instead of egomaniacal Taliban-obsessed disaster that he is.
Osama bin Laden is still alive
The number of times many of us in the field have heard this one should be documented as a form of psychological abuse. It’s one thing when random uncles and aunts will grab you by the hand and sit you down for a little chat about the good old chap, it’s a whole new territory when it’s someone you have to work with for another story. So there you are talking about the suicide rates in the country when you’re smacked with the “they’re hiding him somewhere, he’s not dead!” story. You shake your head and try to press on with the original topic but your truther, or conspiracy theorist, will remain persistent. Good old Osama wanted to change the world. He wanted to take revenge from the Yahood who were ruining our lives. He was on the good side. “What about the CIA training him then?” you ask, with some exasperation and hope that the conversation will die. “Yes, that was his brilliance. They never saw him coming.” You smile and live through the rest and stab yourself in the eye a thousand times.
Dr Afia Siddiqui the True Daughter
And in the same vein: all the different ways Malala is faking everything. The weirdness surrounding Malala is so grand at times that you could get away with telling people she’s a virtual character and not a real girl and they would believe you. Most people have no idea about Malala or Afia. They follow narratives fed to them by a myriad of people around them, but of course most of these narratives take a shape of secrets and hidden notions that the “media” can’t ever talk about. So you have to sit there and keep a straight face as people tell you how a CIA trained woman with a dubious background is the nation’s lost daughter while someone whose only crime is to ask for education is Satan’s spawn.
Everything is RAW
This one is pretty popular and you don’t have to be a journalist to hear any of these theories: India hates us and it’s always trying to destroy us. But we don’t have enough of a spine to call them out on it despite the fact that we’ve been maligned time and again by their media for our literal involvement in ruining their country. When the Karachi airport was taken over we all sat and watched in horror as not one but two different Taliban groups took responsibility for the attacks. While most would think their personal testimony was good enough, our masses, it would appear, are bored of the TTP narrative. Modi coming into power has indirectly spelled disaster for all Pakistanis. Although most don’t have the remotest idea of who he is. “Ji, Modi ne bohat musalman maray hain…”, one is told. “But Muslims die in Pakistan too…”, you respond. And then comes the not-so-shocking shocker, “Aray ji, who tu Ahmadi wageria hotay hain na!” So this was the opportune moment to bring back one of our oldest truther stories: India hates us, India did this, it was Indian weapons.
These are just a few and there are many more. The most ironic part of these truthers and their half-truths is that they’re almost always based on things they heard from someone else, never something they found first hand. If you’re a journalist who has to work with facts and nothing but facts, sitting through these sessions can literally make your brain melt, but that comes with the job. So how’s that free sandwich working out for you?
The writer is sick and tired of listening to these stories, but if you have something to share, you can e-mail at: [email protected].
