Evovlution of our Electronic Media and Elephants Of Porus

I remember the time when we used to get only 2 channels on our telly1. PTV
2. NTM/STN
Ptv used to start its broadcast at 3 or 4 if my memory serves me right. The main attraction for my folks was the 2000hrs drama and 2100 news. For me it was the daily 1900hrs cartoons on NTM. Even though I didn’t understand a single word of it but I still used to watch them. Every one seemed to be happy those days. They used to watch the evening news and some times discussed politics over the dinner table.

As time moved on the variety of programmes started to expand. A special 2 hours time slot of cartoons was introduced by STN. That was my all time favorite. Just sitting in front of the telly, watching cartoons under the watchful eye of my mother. A number of tv dramas added up. The viewer ship of the telly increased rapidly. PTV introduced another channel by the name of PTV WORLD giving us an extra option of flipping channels.
Then once I over heard my Dad and uncle who were talking about installing a satellite dish. Within a week we had 2 satellites on our roof top which gave us 40 new channels and thus began my journey of drifting away from our local TV channels.

Over the next couple of years I learned a lot about different countries thanks to national geographic, got dragged into Hindi movies and music. Then a blessing in disguise happened and the Indian channels stopped there free viewer ship and thus disconnecting my link with ZTV( I saw ZEE after a gap of 8 years on a foreign soil). But the damage was done. I had lost the charm in the local channels and even the cartoons that I used to love (still love them) became boring as they were repeat telecasts.

Then we changed our residence and in the new place I was introduced to cable TV. That’s when I found about channels like HBO, Star Movies and our very own satellite channels group the Indus TV network. By now I was a telly addict. Used to regularly watch at least 4 hours of telly. The advertisement jingles were always on the back of my mind.
Then one day I got up and found out that the cable tv has been disconnected. Now I was back to our local tv and telly became boring again. But now I had started to realize that our channels are more interesting because they show something that we can relate to. News became interesting, political discussions sounded fun as now I had started to understand what’s going on in our country. On 12th and 13th October when I stayed up the whole night listening to the patriotic songs, the vigorous political debate and waiting for Musharaf’s speech at my uncle’s house will always remain in the back of my mind.

Then came Musharaf and he opened up the doors of freedom of media. A lot of new channels were started. Most of them being news channels which were started by leading news paper groups of the country, Geo and Aaj being the prime examples, Dawn, Express, Duniya and many more later joined the band wagon. Initially there programmes on moral and ethical issues gained them mass following and popularity. Local channels were preferred over the foreign news and entertainment channels.

As they kept on growing they started to follow a different track. Earning big money became there motto. The tv anchors have started to believe that they have gained command over every topic under the roof. They started to pass verdicts not comments on Banking, Politics, Economic issues and even sports. In there programmes these anchors give long lectures on moral and ethical values. One such anchor when he was doing a programme in a women’s university was questioned that “Why isn’t Begum Nawazish Ali is taken off air as the host of that programme is cross dressing and talking dirty things on air” that anchor merely replied that its not possible as that very programme is getting there channel the highest number of advertisement and even now that very anchor can be seen talking about ethics and morality.

Now what has happened over the period of 5 years is that all our channels are in a race of increasing TRP. They don’t care about the damage they are doing to the society. Fake news are broadcasted as breaking news and later on when its confirmed that the news was not correct they just show a ticker which just say that the news has been denied by an authentic source. No sorry or apology is ever heard from the news channels.
Some specific anchors are busy following an agenda which portrays a negative image of the country to the foreign world. They always talk about a fragile government in our country, some of them even say that they have had it with this democracy and want the army to take charge of the country. Our country is already going to a volatile phase due to the suicide bombing and the war on terror.

As a result of this negative propaganda the direct foreign investment decreased by 53% this year as compared to the last year.

There reporting has lead to a lot of agitation in the public especially in the mind of the youth who now consider Pakistan as a failed state or a banana republic.

I hope that in these tough times the media will think beyond its recent success and will realize its national duties and will follow democratic, moral, ethical, professional and national duties or else it will result as it will act as Elephants of Poras for the newly elected democrative government under which it is allowed the complete freedom of expression.

P.S: for those of you who don’t know what are Elephants of Poras?
Poras was a king who in a war against Alexander raised an army of elephants and those elephants ended up crushing his own army.