(Contributed by Cubicile Blues)
Indo-Pak Romance Project Aman ki Asha today received a major boost when Pakistan President Asif Zardari praised Indian media for its original, in-depth and totally kick-ass style of news coverage. Addressing the Confederation of Pakistan Industry (CPI), President Zardari, in a rare instance of praising something Indian, asked the Pakistani media to follow the 'news coverage model used by Indian news channels.
President Zardari deplored that Pakistani corporate media houses have forgotten their patriotic duty of airing news that boosts the morale of the country. "Telecasting saddening news such as rise in prices, insurgency in Baluchistan and constantly focusing on all-pervading corruption not only depresses our general public but also paints the Government of Pakistan in poor light, which no government in the world can afford to tolerate." warned the President.
The President reminded Pakistani media companies that they are foremost corporates and that the chief objective of every media company is to serve the nation by providing cheap entertainment to its customers and to its shareholders by maximizing its profits. "Pakistan's media has failed in its duty to serve the nation by airing depressive news that casts a pall of gloom over the country. It has also failed in its duty towards its shareholders by not generating extra revenue that it has potential to earn by focusing on sensationalism, gossip and trashy low-brow entertainment."
Making a scathing attack on the media, President Zardari told the confederation that the nation's media should not use the nation's deep-rooted, complex, unsolvable problems as an excuse to shy away from its onerous duties of entertaining the masses and keeping them preoccupied with unimportant trivia. "Pakistan is not the only country with major problems. Every nation faces problems, but they don't wallow in gloom all the time. Our media should take inspiration from their Indian counterparts who disregard all gloomy news and focus on providing entertainment to its bludgeoning middle class viewers."
"Our neighbors, India, suffers from high food inflation and even higher farmers suicide rate. Corruption is rampant everywhere. Their cities are filthy, full of slums with power-cuts and water shortages being the order of the day. But how does Indian media cover the troubles of their country? Instead of showing gloomy news of suiciding farmers, children suffering from malnutrition, people dying of starvation while government godowns are packed with food grains, they concentrate their attention on celebrity marriages. Anchors on their news channels breathlessly inform viewers that have 'exclusive' evidence that Ayesha Siddiqui is married to Shoaib Malik. News network stop their normal coverage to present live coverage of Shoaib and Sania's press conference. While they hire no journalists to cover rural affairs despite 65 percent of India living in villages, thousands of their reporters descend in hordes with mikes and cameras whenever a celebrity land himself in a soup. While Maoists are running parallel governments in several parts of the country and killing paramilitary forces, Indian media instead of informing their readers why their country is facing a civil-war like situation, focus all of their attention on trivial matters." said the President.
"Indian media houses don't shy away from catering to the lowest denominator, because unlike our media, they have wholeheartedly embraced capitalism. They don't chase real news or issues that affect the lives of viewers, but high TRPs realizing that news channels can generate revenue only if they get good quantity of advertisements from corporates and governments. Like Indian news channels, Pakistani media too should learn the art of breaking news every few minutes to get their viewers, bored of real life where nothing much happens, hooked on their television sets all the time." advised the President.
Zardari exhorted the owners of media of Pakistan to chase growth and be greedy like Indian media "Indian television channels are never satisfied in their quest for higher TRPs. They have a nose for detecting news that sells and once they find it, they stick with it, milking it for all its worth."
Concluding his address, President Zardari retaliated his stand that media is a pillar of democracy and that he doesn’t wish to control it. "I don't want to interfere with the freedom of press, but at the same time, I must remind our media houses that they are failing in performing their noble task of providing news that people find entertaining. The Government of Pakistan had time and again offered several opportunities to the Pakistani media. We made a mess of Pakistani Cricket long before the birth of IPL. However, unlike Indian media which went into a deep slumber avoiding all important issues and concentrated all their attention on IPL, Pakistani media kept raising unnecessary issues such as independence of judiciary. In India, judiciary is as good as non-existent with delays in cases lasting several decades, but their media wakes up only when some sensational case of miscarriage of justice happens. The diversion created by their media repeatedly allows Indian Government to escape being answerable to its electorate on issues of national importance."
Closing his speech President Zardari said that Pakistan's media must cooperate with the Government in keeping the pretense that their country is not in deep shit. "We must all work together to project a positive picture of a Pakistan. Like the Indian media which constantly projects Pakistan as a failed state about to splinter into a thousand pieces, while avoiding delving too much on their own problems, we too must project India as a failed democracy torn by caste and class wars, while at the same time deflect attention of people from our own troubles."
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