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ith authoritarian regimes in fashion around the world, states are increasingly asking journalists to toe their line or face dire consequences. This jingoistic hyper-nationalism has severely affected the credibility of the traditional media, which is at a historic low. Social media trends are making things even more challenging.
I was in Kabul in the spring of 2014 to cover the Afghan presidential election. After voting was over, around a dozen Afghan leaders, including the interior minister, sat before their media to update them about the conduct of elections. Those in presence were Afghan and international journalists, none of them from Pakistan. To a question about shelling on the Pak-Afghan border, the interior minister took at least 15 minutes, answering in great detail. The gist of his speech was that Pakistan had made life hell for them by shelling more than usual on the critical election day.
The next morning, I went to his office to meet him and asked him to record his last night’s reply for the BBC Urdu audiences. He flatly refused, saying those utterances were for his domestic audience only. I then realised that it could be part of the Afghan establishment’s decades-old strategy to keep the anti-Pakistan narrative and the ‘anti-neighbour’ hype alive. Later, I also wondered whether the presence of a Pakistani journalist at that presser could have made the Pakistan-bashing a little less intense. Regular exchange deployment of journalists is rare in the region.
Once Pakistan used to have some journalists posted in India, including some from the official Associated Press of Pakistan, on a reciprocal basis. This is no longer the case. Today, journalists are not given visas in neighbouring countries, to begin with. If they get lucky on that count, they must report to local police in the host country.
After two days of border skirmishes with Pakistan, the Afghan national media, especially the RTA started broadcasting propaganda against Pakistan in a way not seen before. That had no impact in Pakistan as like Zee News of India, Pakistan had banned several Afghan Pashto language TV channels such as Shamshad from its cable network several years ago over their coverage of Pakistan’s tribal regions and militancy.
And it’s not just the governments that want coverage on their terms. Many nationalists and so-called civil rights activists target journalists for not reporting as per their wishes. One example was a group of three journalists, including the scribe, heading for Kabul in October 2021 soon after the fall of Dr Ashraf Ghani’s government to report on the change.
As soon as the group posted a photograph of themselves at the historic Bab-i-Khyber in the Khyber Pakhtunkwa province, trolling started on social media. The visiting journalists were all senior professionals and known for their work. But Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement supporters, and many others, sitting safely in foreign countries, alleged that the group’s visit was sponsored by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Though none of them had anything to do with the government or its agencies, their lives were put at great risk. One tweeted: “they are being sent to highlight Afghan Taliban’s success and muster support for them.”
Several countries, notably Russia, have enacted strict laws to control media reporting on conflict. In Russia, new legislation criminalises calling the Ukraine conflict a war or an invasion, with penalties including up to 15 years in prison for journalists who violate these rules.
It did not stop there. The social media storm kept gaining traction as the team reached Kabul. Security was precarious as the Afghan Taliban grappled with the challenge of power unexpectedly dropping in their lap. All three were eventually called back to Pakistan by their employers because of the bitter social media propaganda.
Closer to home, authorities have started spoon feeding the media on domestic security as well as foreign policy issues, leaving independent journalism high and dry. Journalists don’t decide the day’s agenda on these two important concerns. Government’s motives might be defensible since war is indeed serious business; its coverage cannot be left to the naive. But the consequences of this accepted ‘necessity’ are twice detrimental. One, journalists lose their relevance before their audiences, failing to do their job, independently; second, losing sight of regional cooperation. There is no bright side to this.
Most states now expect a high degree of compliance from media in wartime, rationalised on grounds of operational security and the protection of militarily sensitive information. They have also made considerable use of patriotism as a mechanism for disciplining mass media.
In early 2000s, when the media was liberalised in Pakistan, we could watch Zee News in the comfort of our living rooms. That did not go on for long. India soon started using it as a tool to disseminate ridiculous anti-Pakistan propaganda. The channel was then taken off the cable network in Pakistan for good.
Some Indian channels literally scream anti-Pakistan absurdities from their screens, leaving no room for their broadcast in Pakistan. We saw absolute madness in May this year when the two South Asian nuclear power nations had their first formal, but thankfully, short war ever since becoming nuclear states in 1998.
This is just one example of how countries have used various ways to misuse or manipulate the national media to malign an ‘enemy’ country. But the game does not stop there. Numerous officially supported channels and digital platforms are propped up with the sole purpose of maligning the ‘enemy’ country. All they build on is hatred.
Several countries, notably Russia, have enacted strict laws to control media reporting on conflict. In Russia, new legislation criminalises calling the Ukraine conflict a war or an invasion, with penalties including up to 15 years in prison for journalists who violate these rules. In Pakistan, journalists have been made to use more antagonistic terms and threatened with laws such as the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act.
Conflict causes adrenalin rush for the media. Independent journalism becomes difficult in war situations. But when things are calmer, they need to be facilitated for access to conflict zones as well as information. A Vietnam veteran and now an independent journalist, Tom Nusbaumer, recalls the Gulf War: “When it began, 1,500 journalists were taken along and reduced to electronic and print cheerleaders for the home team.”
During the war, the US media, too, relied on Pentagon, the White House and the State Department, rather than the frontlines in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. During the Falklands conflict, the then BBC chairman was adamant that “the BBC is not, and could not be, neutral as between our country and an aggressor. We all know that.”
War is deadly. It is very difficult to cover it as journalists. The media doesn’t need to be a cheerleader all the time; it must regain its lost trust by exercising its independence. Media working in silos, especially of countries engaged in conflict, will not help bring durable peace and economic prosperity to their countries or the region. The big nations of South Asia will one day have to change their gameplan.
The writer, a journalist for 33 years, has been an editor at the BBC in Pakistan for over two decades. Currently, he is the managing editor at Independent Urdu.