Axact: Exacting a heavy toll on the media

The signs of an even bigger malaise

Now that a hand-cuffed Shoaib Shaikh has been handed over by the court to FIA for physical remand till June 7, much more startling revelations are expected during the coming few days. But much before the furore that followed the publication of The New York Times expose regarding alleged malpractices of Axact group and the ultimate arrest of its CEO and five others executives, people who had even little interest in media affairs were perturbed by the developments taking place in the name of ‘Bol’ within the Pakistani media.

Bol stories started about two years ago with the news that a ‘really big’ media house was coming into existence that will make people forget the existing biggest names in the field. Rumours of different sorts continued for a while with little development on the ground. Then, expected dates for its launch started circulating which were not more than three months away at any given time. The process of recruitment started simultaneously. Two years down the road, this longest-running recruitment drive resulted in pilling up most of the big – and not so big – media names under the Bol banner. But the fact is that this was the only ‘substantial progress’ that the company made during all this time, besides painting privately-owned local public transport vans with the channel’s official emblem in the country’s big cities and a few fire engine-looking vehicles at its Karachi office.

Numerous funny anecdotes were rife since Axact announced it mega project and Bol started its talent hunt. Some were about the channel’s financial resources, which ranged from fraud to crime money. Others were about its behind-the-scene backers, which ironically kept on changing names from underground mafia dons to the military establishment of the country. Still others were about the ‘seven-digit packages’ offered to the prospective employees, which comprised funnily meager take-homes but lucrative additional perks like Filipino maids to serve the household and swimming pools to bathe in, etc. But let’s not divulge into its details because if the allegations against the group are not true then it was good for the journalistic fraternity to be introduced to exuberant life-styles and if these are true then it is for the state authorities to probe and punish the culprits – which it already seems to be doing. Instead, let’s concentrate what the Bol venture has done to the Pakistani media?

To begin with, the Bol’s talent hunt deprived the country’s media of some of the most senior names at a time when not only the media’s credibility was nose-diving and was badly needing credible names in its ranks but also that the country was going through one of the most tumultuous times and it needed seasoned journalists with an ability and understanding to put up the right questions and help the nation understand what was going on around it. Alas, it robbed both the media industry and the country of the people (may be, very few but) whose services were really needed. Whether by default or by design some of the most reliable and trustworthy voices were silenced indefinitely. It appeared very strange that the channel didn’t go on air in more than two-year time. It is more intriguing keeping in view the background of its parent company which was supposedly an IT software giant and which had no paucity of technical or financial resources to launch it within a much shorter period of time; other, much smaller groups, did it within months. The inordinate delay caused people to refer to Bol as ‘Parking Lot’ and ‘Garage’ for the ‘old and heavy’ (journalists). Bol’s answer that such things do take time is not convincing and it is still not clear as to why Shaikh sb roped in these media heavyweights into the parking lot and switched off their engines for such a long time.

This brought changes to, and damaged, the media industry in many ways. For example, the hiring of big screen stars prompted mid and lower level journalists and technicians to jump the ‘running’ ships and search for greener pastures amidst stale waters. This brain-drain resulted in compromised news/programs/content quality, on the one hand, while compelling the channels to fill the vacant positions with journalistic non-entities having less knowledge, experience and sometimes having no academic background in the relevant fields, on the other. The results were obvious; with the owners as ‘virtual editors’ (looking and managing things at macro level, like deciding topics), and the day-to-day running of the show and raising questions completely in the hands of these novices, real issues are seldom brought to the fore or debated from the right angles. Most of these young stars are just a call (or a message away) to do someone else’s bidding and set someone else’s agenda. It is not to suggest that real issues were discussed threadbare or right questions were raised when all of those shining stars were around. But something was better than nothing. At least some of the pertinent questions happened to be raised even if not allowed to be answered completely or even if predetermined answers were sought.

The disappearance of ‘known’ faces resulted in further erosion of the already dwindling media credibility. Confusion is what the media has always spread through 7-11 talk shows but the crisis has since confounded. Now the viewer does not look for the ‘most reliable’ amongst voices when he sits in front of TV; he/she now just searches for some ‘known’ and ‘experienced face’ to tune into and lower down the level of his/her cognitive dissonance by listening something right or wrong from him/her.

But let’s go to the next question; what will happen now?

Though law is being seen to be proceeding at unmatched zeal and speed against the nouveau riche, doubts still persist that the state may finally succumb to the power of money like it has always done as a rule. (Remember Ayan Ali which all the state institutions failed to complete a ‘challan’ against after a lapse of more than two and half months now?) If Shoaib A Shaikh is really the biggest crook on earth (congratulations, sir) who has brought ‘fraud’ to the next imaginable digital level on global scale then he has lots of it and then he can easily buy the whole system to conspire in his favour. But seriously, apart from money, some other factors are likely to play important role in deciding the fate of the parent company, the man who heads it and the yet-to-be-born (if at all) “Pakistan’s largest media infrastructure”.

These are: One, how true the allegations of The New York Times are, about Axact running a fraudulent net-based global education syndicate and what ‘admissible evidence’ is available with Pakistani and foreign authorities to prove it in a court of law? Two, whether the company was really in cahoots with the powers that be which wanted it to challenge the supremacy of some old, influential actors that were already in the arena? Three, whether the objectives (discrediting the media further, sidelining the old, experienced faces, and making the existing ones to toe the line) have already been achieved; and that there is no need now to allow a potential Frankenstein’s Monster to come into being which may try to eat everything and everyone up tomorrow? Four, whether if Shaikh Sb was a lone wolf, with shady background and money, who aimed too high to frighten the existing sharks in the pool and the elephants outside it, and it was deemed fit by all to gang up and kill him before it was too late? Five, whether most of the bad things committed by Axact were ‘unethical’ or these were ‘illegal’ in nature, both here and in other relevant countries? And six, what are the stakes and share of the US (and other western countries) in this affair and how do they (particularly the US) wish the matter to be addressed and resolved – if they do have any ‘interest’ in it all?

Many things will be clear once the investigations take some definitive direction. Much will also depend on whether Axact decides to take legal action against NYT in US courts or not. That will be a pointer to the likely outcome of the issue at hand. But since the mind behind this project is behind bars, the power and influence of the group seems crippled for the time being. Hence, the likelihood of Axact challenging NYT in US courts is fast diminishing.

At the moment, the ugly face of the Pakistani media is once again before everyone to see, where all have teamed against one, albeit the one that hasn’t become a reality yet, and even if that meant stooping too low and trampling journalistic norms and ethics along the way. During the initial days no media house waited for a developing story to take a certain shape but started giving judgments before sufficient relevant facts were available; they didn’t care for state institutions to carry forward investigations into the matter. Many questions have also been raised about the state institutions, investigative journalism and investigative media stars. If the allegations are proved to be true, then the next big questions will be; what were our state institutions doing for the past 18 years? What were our media houses and great investigative journalists doing when a mega-scandal of global proportions was brewing under their noses?  What was the professional and intellectual competence of those veterans who have been milking the media cow in the name of ‘investigative journalism’ for decades but who were blinded by the power of money to the extent not to where the huge resources were coming from that they were paid so heftily for months and years without doing anything, except keeping silent. Keeping silent, hmm.

Whatever the truth behind the Axact scandal is, Bol project has exacted a heavy toll on the country’s already discredited media, the real extent of which will be known only in retrospect at some future date. However, what is obvious at the moment is that it is poorer than ever and will take a long time to recover; recover if it must.