What low-hanging fruit is it to sigh sarcastically at Geo’s Ameen Hafeez for his brand of reporting. Look, here he is, dancing with some boys in Lahore, enjoying the rain; look, here he is enjoying a cool swim in the canal; look, here he is talking to cows after they have used an overhead bridge to get to the other side!
Hahah, the idiot! Doesn’t he know that cows can’t speak? What was he thinking of, says the smart viewer. Of course he knows they can’t speak; he just does this type of reporting to get attention, snaps his even more discerning cousin.
These towering intellectual giants want to kill Ameen Hafeez because they feel cheated out of the hard-earned money they have spent to watch Geo’s free programming. Journalism should be serious. It should be hard-nosed reporting on actual issues like economics and public policy, the sort of stuff they don’t actually watch but would like to be running on the news channels while they are watching Ek Tha Tiger reruns on the DVD channel of local cable.
Well, in my humble opinion, Ameen Hafeez is smart and entertaining. I have even liked a Facebook community by the name of Ameen Hafeez appreciation society.
His latest video to have caught the attention of many in the country, including some across the border, is his piece on animals using overhead bridges to cross the roads, while pedestrians prefer putting theirs and others’ lives at risk by crossing on foot and hopping over road dividers.
I think it was a unique topic, specifically designed to shame viewers into using overhead bridges by showing even animals use them. But the bit where he actually asks the cow how difficult it was to cross the bridge was a masterstroke which struck TV gold.
I refuse to be shamed for liking it. And nor should you, dear reader.
