Sensitive bullies

Being a pundit on TV has got to be the easiest gig in the country. No research, no preparation and certainly no accountability. It’s just like having a drawing room discussion on politics, except being paid for it.

Far from commenting on the nuances of public policy, our pundits have a one-size-fits all explanation for all the ills of the country: the corruption of the elected governments. Having that tool in the shed circumvents the need for any meaningful discussion. That is why all TV talk shows sound almost exactly the same.

They can dish it out, but they certainly can’t take it.

Take the following video of Moeed Pirzada (online viewers only) that Waqt News’ Matiullah Jan put on his programme. It shows the leaked footage from an interview of Pirzada’s that a journalism student was conducting.

Though Matiullah Jan starts off with how wrong it was of Pirzada to insist on seeing the questions beforehand, I don’t think that is too objectionable a request. Respondents do it all the time, all over the world, in order to let the questions swish around in their heads for a while so they can answer them better.

But during the course of the interview — one can pick up from context that it was about the basis of the allegations against the Jang Group — Pirzada gets riled up and says that he has to finish the interview because there seems to be a “hidden agenda”.

“I am so upset that you could do something like this” is what Pirzada is heard saying to the student as he physically removes the tape from one of the cameras. The leaked footage comes from another camera that Pirzada could not get to.

Far from any hidden agenda the student explains on Matiullah’s show that he was doing a documentary commissioned by his university in the UK and that the cameraman that Pirzada snatched the camera from was his younger school-going brother.

Furthermore, he said that Pirzada accused him of being an agent who is out to malign the ISI and asked “should I call the fareshtas (euphemism for the spooks)?”

Petty and crass.

*****

Some years ago, there was a diligent and honest commissioner of the income tax service in Islamabad who wanted to get the city’s restaurants to pay their fair share of tax. The margins in the hospitality sector are huge and so are the profits. And, much like the other sectors, they do some serious tax evasion.

He sent one of his teams to a popular and expensive tea-house. The income tax inspector asked to see the establishment’s books, which was their right during a tax raid. The well-connected proprietor of the place seemed to think this was brazen violation of their rights, so she called a private TV channel whose high-ups she knew. The channel sent a camera crew to cover this “high handedness by state officials”.

The tax inspector called his commissioner and explained that the situation was getting difficult, especially with the media there. But his boss asked him to stay put and sent a camera crew of his own to the venue. The department didn’t even have a camera crew; the commissioner wasn’t exactly sure himself why he sent these men with a camera.

But, as soon as they went there and started filming the TV’s camera crew, the latter simply dispersed.

Nothing scares the media like the media.

All bullies are cowards.