Freedom & Responsibility

By Amir Zia

Monthly Hilal

The Pakistan Armed Forces' Magazine

August, 2015

Joseph Gobbels’ of today’s world are indeed more sophisticated, subtle and greater manipulators of information and disinformation. But unlike the Nazi spin-master, they don’t proclaim that “even propaganda must be mastered.” They just practice and apply it to the perfection, while holding the public posture that resorting to propaganda is something dishonourable, inferior and immoral

In this day and age of instant news, views and battle of ideas, building a national narrative is also a key national security challenge. Whether it is peacetime, an all-out war or a prolonged period of restrained, but cold hostilities, modern states – both democratic and authoritarian – are banking more and more on the soft-power of the mass media to articulate their values, vision and aspirations and promote political, diplomatic and economic interests.

Besides fulfilling the core responsibility of dissemination of news and information, mass media also plays a vital role in building national unity and cohesion on one hand and to divide, undermine, demonize and defeat the internal and the external enemies of the state on the other. The integrated, interdependent globalized world and the state-of-the-art communication technologies have only extended and expanded the reach of the mass media as was never seen before.

Joseph Gobbels’ of today’s world are indeed more sophisticated, subtle and greater manipulators of information and disinformation. But unlike the Nazi spin-master, they don’t proclaim that “even propaganda must be mastered.” They just practice and apply it to the perfection, while holding the public posture that resorting to propaganda is something dishonourable, inferior and immoral. However, among professional, practicing journalists and media persons the debate about press freedom remains as relevant as in the past. Being factual, fair, balanced and objective is still the defining international yardsticks of journalism. Yet, it is also a fact that the mainstream media – be it state-run or private – is very much part of the system and plays according to the rules of the game. The authoritarian states cannot be singled out for using mass media as a persuasive propaganda tool. The “free” media of Western democracies also remains aligned with their national narrative.

A cursory look of conflicts involving Western powers in the late 20th and 21st centuries shows how the mainstream media helped advance interests of their respective states. During 1980s – when the “free world” was pitted against the former Soviet Union and its ideological allies in Afghanistan’s proxy war – the Western media glorified words such as “jihad, mujahid and mujahedeen.” The conservative Afghan tribal culture did not bother the Western sensibilities. Every aspect of Afghan resistance was puffed-up and the tribal traditions romanticized – from the hardy ways of Pakhtoon warriors to that of their strict, puritan adherence to the Islamic code. The mainstream media of the Western democracies aligned itself with goals and aspirations of their respective states in the make-or-break struggle between capitalism and communism. In this conflict, the West saw Islamists as ideological allies and its media glorified them in news, views, movies and works of fiction. But this affair ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Initially the West became indifferent towards Afghanistan, but this indifference later transformed into all-out hostilities, which reflected in the media coverage of the religiously-motivated militants even in the pre-9/11 days. The mere presentation of facts in a news story – like “the Taliban force men to keep beards” and the “all-enveloping veil” for women – if seen from the Western perspective portrayed Islamists negatively. Words including holy warriors (Mujahideen) and holy war (Jihad) – once used in a positive manner assumed negative connotations against the backdrop of global war against terrorism.

Besides Afghanistan, the US-led Western powers’ other war theatre was the Middle East, which witnessed the first heavily televised conflict in 1990-91 First Gulf War. The US news channels – CBS, ABC and the emerging CNN of those times with its 24-hour coverage – brought this war inside the homes of viewers with non-stop live reporting. These channels helped form public opinion in favour of the conflict as was never done in the history on this mass scale and in such a short span.

The 2003 Iraq War started with the “noble” aim to defang Baghadad of its Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). This was the narrative orchestrated by the then US administration. The Western media proved an important partner of the US administration not just in shaping up domestic, but the world public opinion in favour of this war. However, the allegation of WMDs eventually proved wrong. But by that time Washington had achieved its goals.

One can give scores of other examples in which the Western media served as a tool to advance the goals of their respective states. Indeed, freedom of speech, diversity of opinion, openness, blunt critical views and breaking scandals are very much part and parcel of the ethos of the mainstream media in the West, but all this is allowed strictly within the ambit of the Western capitalist system. The West has taken upon itself the “sacred duty” of promoting and imposing its brand of democracy and notions of freedom and human rights as core international values. And the Western media serve as the flag-bearer of these concepts. Any alternative discourse or deviation from this “ultimate truth” is considered politically incorrect and flawed in a world dominated by the West.

However, while staying within the system, the Western media operates under an efficient regulatory framework. This means that freedom of expression comes with responsibility, which is not voluntary, but ensured through effective defamation and libel laws. The soft power exercised by the West through mass media, especially the United States, remains an important extension of their hard military, scientific, technological and economic power.

Among developing countries, India offers a strong imprint of soft-power. Indian movies, music, entertainment and news channels are making their presence felt as an effective propaganda tool and help in building image of the “new India,” which takes pride in its military and economic muscle. The Indian news channels are hawkish and known for zealously pushing the “state line” on all the internal security challenges – from curbing the freedom movement in the Indian occupied Kashmir to that of confronting separatists in northeastern India, including Assam, Nagalim and Tripura. There is an unapologetic display of fanaticism by Indian news channels when it comes to relations with Pakistan, which is held responsible even for a firecracker bang there. Regardless of which political party is in power in New Delhi, the Indian state and the media speak with one voice as they attempt to give centrality to terrorism in any diplomatic engagement with Pakistan and try to deflect attention from the core dispute of Kashmir. When the Times of India (ToI) and a major Pakistani media group launched their media-led “peace” movement a few years back, the difference of approach between them proved stark.

While the ToI restricted activities to a handful of track-II discussions and conferences in line with the state policy, its Pakistani counterpart went all-out to promote this campaign here. The local media group devouted entire pages in its Urdu and English language newspapers for this purpose, but the ToI did not carry such propaganda material.

Similarly, the ToI did not allocate any resources to operate propaganda website for this campaign nor pushed it on the news media. This entire operation was operated by its Pakistani counterpart. The local media group tried to involve Western diplomatic missions in this campaign in an attempt to build pressure on the state institutions, but the Indian media group remained committed to its country’s policy that any engagement between the two countries should only be bilateral. In Pakistan, the closed-door engagements with foreign diplomats remained focused on the premise that our armed forces are the main hurdle in relations with India. The campaign focused mainly on the promotion of cultural and economic ties – an old Indian demand – and pushed the core Kashmir dispute and other contentious issues on the back burner. This is only one among countless of such examples in which a key local media house tried to undermine the state institutions and hurt the core national interests.

A look at the Pakistani media scene reveals that it is mostly sensational and often driven by narrow commercial interests, particularly the mainstream news channels. No wonder, in recent years more and more Pakistanis are questioning the overall role and impact of these channels in the society.

If to count the positives, the private channels indeed expanded boundaries of coverage since the last military-led government liberalized the electronic media industry in 2002. Former president General Pervez Musharraf’s decision to end the state monopoly over radio and television brought pluralism and diversity in the news coverage. It allowed the electronic media to explore unchartered frontiers. No topic remained a taboo, making the local media one of the most lively, vibrant and candid in the entire region. However, since 2007 and onwards big media houses brazenly pursued political agendas and served their vested commercial interests at the cost of facts, fairness, balance and objectivity in journalism.

A couple of media tycoons began to see themselves as the “government makers,” assuming the role of prosecutor, judge and the executioner – all rolled in one. These players started promoting negativism with their round-the-clock sensational and superficial journalism, which unfortunately now holds the entire electronic media industry hostage. The sensational journalism is not restricted just for day-to-day politics, but also targets institutions, including the armed forces and undermines core national interests. The propaganda drive launched against the Inter-Services Intelligence by the same big media group after a gunmen wounded one of its anchorpersons in a firing incident in Karachi is a case in point. Similarly, some channels tried to undermine the armed forces and other security agencies while covering the low-scale conflict in Balochistan. Some media persons also tried to make the crackdown on al-Qaeda-linked or inspired foreign and local terrorists controversial. These artificially-created controversies, when our armed forces are confronting the biggest internal security challenges, raise doubts about the agenda of media owners and those toeing their line.

The method in the madness is also revealed the way some channels promote Indian content, which is akin to a soft-power invasion. Certain news channels are also trying to influence foreign and core security policy issues and have run foreign-funded advocacy campaigns. Such problems stem from the weak regulatory framework of the electronic media and the unwillingness of the state to impose its writ. The successive governments have also failed to revise the defamation and libel laws in line with the changed media scene, while the existing ones are not being implanted due to the flawed regulatory and judicial system. The media houses use their clout to stay out of the ambit of the law and dodge justice.

PEMRA – the main regulatory body – is unable to implement the basic conditions such as the one that bar channels from exceeding the allocated quota of advertisement in an hour, let alone effective monitoring of the transmission. Government authorities have to ensure that the mass media plays its role in the best of national interest. This means that news channels fulfill their core responsibility of informing and educating the masses as well as help raise the level of public discourse and awareness. Channels also need to promote national unity and highlight positives of the country by providing serious content rather than banking on sensational and shallow aspects of the news coverage. The mass media is too serious a business to be left on the dictates of narrow commercial interests and dubious political and foreign-backed agendas.