The “Well Done” Crowd Discovers a Rotten State

The last days week witnessed quite a spectacle on the screens of Pakistan electronic media. Country’s flamboyant anchorpersons have excitedly showed their presence on social media as well. The subject is the death of 14 newborn babies in gynae ward of Pakistan Institute of Medical sciences (PIMS).

The outrage is justified as the incident reflects the complete absence of accountability in public sector. The gynae ward caught fire that killed the newborns. The criminal justice system has yet to accuse anyone of criminal involvement. Anchorpersons who seem to have just come out of their slumber are dubbing the whole system rotten. There is something deeply ironic about Pakistani media houses and privileged media personality associated with them suddenly discovering that Pakistani state is rotten. The question is where were they before the babies died? The state and its machinery have not gotten rot overnight.

Pakistani media since its very inception has been extremely fond of selling miseries. This tendency has intensified since the advent of electronic media. It is not that these public health institutions have never produced stories of criminal neglect in the past. Misery abounds in these government hospitals, and decay of the system is an everyday story in them. But to attract the attention of big journalists of a big media house there must be big number. At least more than a dozen deaths.

Big numbers produce a sensational media story of institutional failure. But the same media houses are less interested in examining the structures that produce this failure. This contradiction is most glaring in the privileged media personalities with political connections. The decay of the system is the product of decades of ineptitude and incompetence of successive political masters. This privileged media establishment, which suddenly discovered the decay in the system during the last 72 hours, has taken lifetime to cultivate extraordinary proximity to power.

I call them “well done” crowd since they are always there to act as a cheerleader for successive governments who presided over the gradual decay of the system. I am not talking about few individuals. There is whole ecosystem comprising of intelligence services, military officials, government leaders, media owners, anchors, editors and privileged correspondents.

This ecosystem makes every situation a win-win situation for incumbents. Those who are part of this ecosystem act as cheerleaders for the government, the intelligence services and the military establishment. It is also they who don the mantle of opposition when the situation requires it. The key editorial and management positions in major media houses are effectively managed by the Prime Minister’s Office, the Punjab Chief Minister’s Office and the ISI. In this way genuinely independent voices are rarely allowed to gain a foothold on the airwaves. They not only report government narrative they help construct narrative for the government and military establishment.

In Islamabad media power and state power reinforce each other. Here journalism has developed its own political economy, of proximity and loyalty. Privileged journalists are given access, which increases the influence of those who are provided with access to the power corridors, which in turn creates career opportunities for the privileged few. They know what questions to ask and when to ask these questions and when not to ask these questions.

The privileged are not favorites of any one regime. They were on the right side of military regime of general Musharraf. For instance, one of the most visible faces of Pakistan media was minister in pre-military coup Nawaz Sharif cabinet. Later he became a senior official in the faction of Muslim League which ISI created for General Musharraf. Another was an advisor to Shehbaz Sharif who is now the favorite of Pakistani intelligence services.

Journalists must realize that they have a role in scrutinizing the system before disaster occurs. If their whole career could be described as cheerleaders for the government institutions while ignoring the institutional decay that has been visible for decades, their credibility will suffer. And this is not simply omission on the part of few individuals. This is a whole ecosystem working in overdrive to protect organized interests from accountability and to facilitate continued grip of ruling elite on the power structure of society.

Perhaps they spend too much airtime celebrating the power of the state in military conflict so that they do not find time to criticize the same state machinery for failing to perform boring functions of the government like keeping hospitals safe.

Our media is suffering from “Well Done” syndrome—celebrating military victories and diplomatic maneuvers while reporting miseries only when they make good headlines. You cannot keep validating the system loudly and then claim the moral authority of an outsider when the system fails the people of the country. This “Well Done” crowd help create the intellectual and political environment in which these failures could flourish without any accountability or scrutiny.

We have every right to doubt their intentions. Their reporting, the choice of issues and their performance as cheerleader of Pakistani state machinery throughout the years leaves no doubt that they are in bed with the intelligence services and successive governments. We can candidly ask them where were you when the state was delegitimizing dissent, where were you when powerful institutions were increasingly becoming unaccountable primarily because of your style of journalism, where were you when criticism was labelled as anti-state. And last but not the least it was you who crafted the narrative for state to be projected as gospel truth. Where was your outrage then?

There is nothing wrong with demanding accountability for what happened at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). The problem arises when some people try to present this whole situation as a new discovery. The privileged ones who are loudly are describing the system as rotten should always keep in mind that once they were part of the machine which they are now showing the audacity to criticize.