Pakistan media was no angel either after Balakot with its half-truths and denials
Taha Siddiqui, an award-winning Pakistani journalist / The Print
Pakistan media can’t hope for peace by denying the reality on ground or about groups that have also caused havoc on Pakistani soil.
A lot has been said about the Indian media’s irresponsible coverage during the recent Pakistan-India conflict, but the Pakistani media’s role has been no better and was perhaps even worse, given its blatant censorship of crucial facts.
The popular narrative/portrayal that has gained ground is that Pakistan’s media appears to have taken a higher moral ground by saying it stood for peace while Indian media called for war in the aftermath of the terror attack in Pulwama.
However, the reality is a little more nuanced. It may be true that it advocated for peace, but that is the position the Pakistani military has pushed for, and has been doing for almost two decades now since both neighbours went nuclear: Fuel the conflict through non-state actors, deny Pakistan has anything to do with it, and then hide behind empty peace overtures.
Half-truths on Balakot
What’s more, many Pakistani journalists have been criticising the Indian media, with almost a self-righteous attitude. A news channel head in a television show recently said he was disgusted by the behaviour of Indian media, even though the network he runs has been involved in reporting half-truths about the Balakot air strikes.
How can the Pakistani media industry be sincere and committed to peace when it has been lying to itself and the public about some obvious facts surrounding the issue of militancy, particularly about this latest Balakot strikes, for which it has been mostly regurgitating what the Pakistani state is telling it to do.
One of the main facts that the local media has blacked out is the presence of Jaish-e-Mohammed’s (JeM) seminary in the area where the Indian bombs fell. Leading journalists like Hamid Mir and many more who went to the location of the bombing and did shows from the ground have not once mentioned the presence of the JeM seminary in their coverage, even though they recorded the show some meters away from it.
History of silencing the media
Is the Pakistani media censoring voluntarily? Not really. Scores of Pakistani journalists have been beaten, arrested and killed in the country in recent years, for their critical reporting about the Pakistan Army. Just in the last one year, thousands of journalists have been fired from multiple local news organisations, some of which have even shut down in recent months due to an artificial financial crunch that media industry experts accuse the government of orchestrating. The government has even used treason, cyber-crime and counter-terrorism charges to silence the media.
Unlike the Indian media, where the problem seems to be of lack of professionalism, which can be self-corrected, the ability of Pakistani media to fight back doesn’t come easily, given the risks with challenging state-sanctioned censorship.
But if the Pakistani media supports peace in the region as it keeps professing to, it needs report openly about the presence of terror groups on its soil and ask the government some tough questions about the lack of action against them till now.
After its war cry, the Indian media seems to be doing some soul-searching as is evident in a few recent hard-hitting articles questioning the role of the government ‘sources’ in its coverage. It’s about time the Pakistani media does the same.
The author is an award-winning Pakistani journalist living in exile in France. He teaches journalism and is writing a book on Pakistan. He also manages safenewsrooms.org, a digital media platform documenting press censorship in South Asia.