Just like the free media acting out to be fair makes an effort to check government propaganda, it should also actively be wary of not obliging the militants with live coverage of spectacular terror acts, that maximise psychological public damage

By Adnan Rehmat

In the good, the bad and the ugly of the world's freedom of expression (the 2009 Reporters Sans Frontiers global ranking), Pakistan finds itself among the bottom 20 of 175 ranked countries. To some, this does not square up with the 100-plus independent local TV channels (26 of them 24/7 news and current affairs), 125 independent on-air FM stations and dozens of newspapers and magazines arguably free to say or report whatever they please and to bring on commentators and analysts who at times even manage to pass off expletives as a matter of statement. The new surge in terrorism in the last few months and the media's coverage of it is actually forcing even the diehard supporters of freedom of expression to admit that the real-time media is itself getting away with murder, more often than not, by its relentless and extended focus that does incorporate ethical requirements. Because of this, fear is permeating from the television sets to bedrooms and offices.

Media in Pakistan has arguably never been freer. There is more real-time coverage of current affairs than ever. The prime time is hogged by political talk shows rather than entertainment. More information than ever is being generated and consumed in Pakistan's history. This is largely due to the opening up of the airwaves to private ownership a few years ago; a dramatic increase in pluralisms; a greater number of local language media and fierce market competition that is kicking in the primal instinct of sensationalism over substance -- all feeding a hunger for information for 170 million people who have until a few years ago been starved of independent news as a matter of state policy.

In the last two years, media has even emerged as a major stakeholder in the political system that has started to influence events rather than just report and analyse them. Take the case of the sacking of the chief justice in 2007 by former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, the outcome of the 2008 general elections and Musharraf's ouster, and the 2009 restoration of the judiciary. Judges have been unceremoniously sacked, elections have been stolen and military dictators have bowed before but this time everything turned out the 'wrong way' because of the presence of a real-time independent media that simply drowned out the official rhetoric. Sustained coverage full of independent and pluralistic opinions has been forcing a change in the Establishment's script for three years now. In fact, so influential became the media that at one point the Musharraf-led military's second coup was not against a government but against the media! Incredibly, it was also the first overt coup that failed.

The year 2009 has been another sort of watershed for the free Pakistani media in which the media swung at extreme ends when it came to mass influence. In the early part of the year the media helped turn the tide of public opinion against the Taliban by some high-focus coverage of affectees of militant activities in Swat. The repeatedly broadcast footage of a girl being mercilessly lashed by the Taliban, in particular, helped the public break free of the stranglehold of Taliban-driven interpretation of religion and Sharia. The evolved consensus against Taliban brutality that this effected helped the government stop dealing in shady peace deals with the militants and for the military to launch an eventually successful operation against them. It has also been the sustained media-backed support of public opinion in favour of the military taking the fight to the Taliban that has resulted in the army now going into Waziristan in what is billed as the 'mother of all battles' in Pakistan.

Towards the latter part of the year, however, something that has been slowly metastasising has become chronic: spreading of panic, fear and loathing at a mass level. This has been the result of the surge in terrorism as the Taliban/Al-Qaeda stages a series of spectacular terror acts that have restored their confidence (which had wilted after the death of Baitullah Mehsud), paradoxically at the cost of the public, the government and the military, all of which have been at the receiving end of this surge in murderous terrorism. The surge in attacks had to inevitably result in a corresponding increase in media coverage of terrorism. However, the reporting of a high-profile and sustained terrorism run has exposed the incapacities of Pakistani media as it has been unwittingly instrumental in sowing fear in the hearts of all. The gore, the hysteric aftermath of a suicide or improvised bombing, and the cameras relentlessly trained on bloodied victims has generally been unrestrained.

It is a case of questionable journalism when reporters and commentators become part of the story, drop ethics of reporting in favour of sensationalistic minute-by-minute coverage of the aftermath of suicide bombings. The hysteria and panic is widespread each time this has happened in the last few months. If this was not enough, the live coverage is followed by fear and hysteria-mongering analysis during periodic news bulletins, prime time talk shows and late-night analyses -- all backed by disturbing footage from earlier in the day, repeated ad nauseum. Most times of the day people are being either flooded with soundbytes of the possibilities of more terror attacks or visuals of old ones.

All of this, ironically, plays right into the hands of the militants. In fact, reviewing the coverage of terrorism and conflict of the last few months in particular, an argument can be made that the militants have come to 'use' the media as their instrument of terror and fear. Even as the government has been on high alert across the country with a high emphasis on security of all manner of installations and places that are likely targets, the militants have evolved their strategy of putting new kinds of pressures to counter the crackdown on them by the state. They are clearly staging 'media events' designed to sow terror and fear into the peoples' hearts that can not only bring them regular and optimum coverage but by causing bloodshed and mayhem on a large scale, they hope these can help turn the public pressure on the government to scale down the crackdown. This is psychological warfare.

The patterns are clear: big-scale attacks are being staged that employ over 50 kg of explosives to maximise death and destruction; the attacks are being staged in major cities such as Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad where not just the population but the media density is also high, ensuring that the entire media will reach the attacked sites virtually immediately for live and sustained coverage. To ensure that the media play ball, the militants have also been repeatedly threatening the media to ensure that the angry media crank out even more coverage of terrorism. Disturbingly, the attacks on GHQ in Rawalpindi and the three-pronged, single-day attack in Lahore on separate government installations in October -- attackers were carrying dates and dry fruits (to keep their energy levels steady) and attempting (successfully in two instances) to take hostages. This was clearly designed to stage 20- to 30-hour terror acts for live media. In at least the instance on the attack on GHQ, they managed to achieve their objectives to a great degree -- sustained, intense coverage of the act spread so much fear that for days the media's collective news agenda was crowded out by this one act.

It is hard to not believe that the attack on a university in Islamabad was tailor-designed to up the ante on the psywar on the people and government. Finding that staging long-duration "media friendly" hostage events was not too easy, the militants struck at the university to maximise fear through live coverage of a diabolically unique act of terror. The girls section was deliberately targeted through suicide bombing to ensure plenty of media coverage that would heat several social weak spots and cultural sensitivities: an educational institution was attacked, which would pile on the nerves of the government; students would be killed, which would horrify and terrorise parents; girls would be killed and injured, which would further break all kinds of taboos.

And, predictably, the media -- even if unwittingly -- played right into the hands of the militants by 'obliging' them with a media event designed to sow fear and terror on all these counts by their unthinkingly no-holds-barred live coverage of the immediate aftermath coverage. The pressure on government increased as an educational institution was attacked right in the heart of Islamabad and by nightfall calls for Rehman Malik's head were being made for his 'failure' to protect everyone; the educational institutions across the country immediately closed down (virtually a majority of them still unopened a fortnight after the attack); live pictures of girl students without their duppattas and chappals and their shalwar kameezes all bloodied and being wheeled into hospitals and being laid out in ambulances and stretchers generated fear, hysteria and panic.

Clearly unthinking live coverage of the wave of terror sweeping Pakistan and related general extremist interpretations and opinions on a media that is reaching millions of homes in real time is contributing to a more fearful and uncertain milieu that is having an impact that is disproportion to the size of the triggers (however reprehensible the terror attacks and their attendant casualties). An attack that kills 50 persons immediately terrorises 50 million who, in turn, filter that fear and panic down to another 50 million.

The media will have to make a conscious decision to stringently stick to universal codes of ethics when it comes to reporting. While absolutely no information should be withheld, media sensationalism in Pakistan needs to be checked and live coverage of suicides/bombing sites and victims needs to be avoided. Just like the free media acting out to be fair makes an effort to check government propaganda, it should also actively be wary of not obliging the militants with live coverage of spectacular terror acts, particularly gruesome images in real-time, that maximise psychological public damage. Pakistani media must see through the plan of the militants and cover such attacks only with the ethics of reporting in mind. The media must itself come together -- without involving the government -- to agree on a minimum code of ethics of reporting terrorism considering that the bloody war in Pakistan will not go away anytime soon and will, hence, need to be reported responsibly.