The rise of media in Pakistan has brought both positives and negatives with it yet undoubtedly it often behaves in a sold out manner.
Living in Pakistan, conspiracy theories are a norm to hear. From polio drops being a conspiracy against the ummah to the regular preaching by our beloved mullahs on America’s crusade against Islam; from an ancient Hamid Gul to the saintly Zaid Hamid, each seems to bring their own version to the market.
Yet the fact remains that Pakistan for one reason or the other has remained in the global limelight and throughout the country’s short existence there has been tussle by foreign powers to dominate the land of the pure and with the rise of the free media this struggle might just have taken on new horizons.
Though the Pakistani media has been given its freedom just a little over a decade ago ironically by a military dictator, it has often been classified as a sold-out case working on a foreign agenda.
From Geo and Dawn tv giving sermons on how Ajmal Kassab is a Pakistani at the height of the Mumbai attack crises to continuous maligning of the country’s military hierarchy by Geo, all somehow point to the theory that some of the media channels in Pakistan might be committing such notoriety at the behest of a foreign power who regularly give generous cash handouts to the channels’ owners.
Then there stands the internal mafia. In 2012 to everybody’s horror , the real estate tycoon Malik Riaz was caught on camera giving a planted interview in one of the leading tv channels of the country blatantly violating all the norms and ethics of journalism. Maybe it’s no longer hard to understand that the internal mafia, whether it belongs to stock exchange, real estate or any other sector has influenced media to the extent that it now utilizes it as a tool for its own benefit.
It is imperative that certain standards should be set for the media to follow for without these as we have clearly seen in the last decade, our media might just have a tendency to go wild not only damaging the country’s national interest but also be used as a tool used by notorious elements of our society to further their own nefarious agendas.
As of now, we must, unfortunately, acknowledge that our media often behaves like a sold out one without any regard to national respect or the interest of the masses.
