Friday, June 15, 2012

Our Naked Faces

My generation grew up watching state owned black and white TV, later colour, for a long time. We had only one version of the both inside and outside of Pakistan - the state version in all news and discussions in the limited time the TV transmission was aired.

It happened much later when private TV channels entered our lives and suddenly we could hear different voices - different perspectives and other side of the story as well. With the arrival of private TV channels, the state owned PTV went into a rather obscured position as no one wanted to listen to the state mind any more.

Then by and by new started to creep in of manipulations by these private TV channels and also of involvement of anchors as was being done by many newspapers. But no one could imagine that soon a day would come when the dual faces of large number of anchors will surface for having being bribed by politicians, by tycoons or even by the government to air whatever one side wanted to outscore the other.

One of the female TV anchors was seen running after holidaying couples on Karachi beaches and disturbing their private lives, while of the very 'liked' and 'honest' anchor was found writing for a business tycoon and justifying his ugly face on its shows. Even there has been a list published by a big name in the building world of having paid millions to the top most anchors of these private channels for  airing his view point (you may see the list HERE as it appears on internet freely).



But the recent disclosure of a male and female TV anchor talking to the same business tycoon, who has made headlines for bribing the son of the top lawman of the country, behind the screen and showing to the world of manipulation and bribery to these anchors to air his very own view point.

The airing of the video and list of bribes given to the 'bold and famous' TV anchors has exposed the very ugly naked faces of our independent media, which the majority of people of Pakistan thought were doing great service to them by exposing the corrupt, by  of scripting the entire show to please the influential businessman. But in the end, these very anchors ended up corrupt, ugly, naked and exposed - diminishing any hopes for the grieved people of the country to look up to these anchors and help them in their hour of distress by exposing the wrongdoers and the criminals.

And what disturbs me more is that the same anchors, even after having been exposed, continue to appear on their channels and still carrying on to serve their paid masters, rather than hiding their faces in shame and disappearing in obscurity or else apologizing to the nation for their wrong doings. But perhaps, such ethics and ethos are for some other people on some other planet - not Pakistan.

1 comments:

It is so sad. That is why I say more bloggers need to come out and raise the voice.

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