Pakistani Politics and News Channels Coverage by Shiraz Paracha

Recently Bilawal Bhutto visited flood affected areas; he visited victims’ homes and camps, he made speeches and was with victims in very informal way. Most of his activities had tremendous news value, it would make good TV footage but Pakistani TV channels ignored the activities of the leader of a very important political party. Negative news were reported about Bilawal Bhutto's visit but no context was provided about security issues/threats to Bilawal.

Similarly, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, too, visited flood affected areas, gave speeches but he did not get much live coverage. Also only negative news about his visits made headlines.

Mulana Fazaul-u-Rehman has millions of followers but he doesn't get the media coverage what should be his due share. The same is true for the Awami National Party. The media (TV) coverage of ANP gatherings is usually slim.

Sindhi and Baluchi parties are ignored by TV channels. Stories about missing persons from Baluchistan are missing on our TV screens. Baluchistan issues are missing. Many other critical stories and issues are not covered. There are not many critical stories about the performance of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

Strangely, however, Pakistani TV channels give hours of air time to Imran Khan’s meetings and activities. Camera tricks and angles are used to show small crowds big. Imran is promoted as a savior and hero but the elected Prime Minister is demonized. Tahir-ul-Qadri gets undue coverage in the media. Altaf Hussain and the MQM use terror tactics to get live coverage on our TV channels.

An overview of the past few months’ TV news coverage shows a pattern where the ISPR, the PTI and the PAT are presented in positive light while the rest of the parties are either condemned or ignored. The ISPR is transcending its boundaries but the media are uncritical. ISPR prepared PR footage is shown as exclusive news, the media are bashing everybody except Imran Khan. It is very disturbing revelation. This trend is bad for Pakistani journalism.

As a student of psychological warfare and propaganda, I feel that some powerful elements of the Pakistani establishment and media are playing mind games with our public. Our public is not very media literate yet very sophisticated and settled propaganda techniques are used to influence the public opinion in favor of certain point of views, personalities and institutions. The public is treated as passive consumers of propaganda thanks to the media. Non-professional owners, editors, presenters and reporters are misleading the public. The military media alliance to deceive the people of Pakistan can further harm the health of our society.

The Politics of Forward Blocs in PTI and the government of KPK

The recent forward bloc in the KPK Provincial Assembly has yet another time proved (Ref: 90s Forward Blocs) that politics is a big business. 14 MPAs of the ruling PTI government put their demands to party chairman by submitting their resignations. Insiders int he PTI claimed that most of the tickets were sold during the last general elections and most of the elected MPAs are of the same category by paying millions of rupees to people in the provincial and central leadership in the hope of getting higher returns once they get elected to the assembly. Currently some of the wealthy contractors with almost no qualification; have become ministers and advisers and most were ignored in the power game which full of money making. This made some MPs annoyed by getting ignored and their reaction is very clear; they want a return on their invested capital in the form of development funds, advisory and ministerial positions. This will guarantee a huge return monetarily on their invested money.

PTI has proved to be a typical traditional Pakistani political party. The Chairman is already hijacked in the Tareen Airline (an aircraft and a chopper dedicated by Jehangir Tareen to IK) as he has lost contact with the workers and supporters. IK has ignored to develop PTI as an ideological party and the result will be PTIs voters can be of anyone in the future. The trailer was given in the by-elections in Mian Wali and Peshawar where PTI lost its voters in a span of three months time.


 IK skype and google speeches are no more of value as their voters and workers needs them to deliver instead of making noise. The Sehat ka Insaf program, educational reforms, municipality, security and administration of the province are some of the biggest failures of the Khattak government. Even Khattak government has failed to give driving licenses to the people due to the clashes between the traffic police and the transport department which is a mere an executive order issue. From last 6 months, there is no single license issued by the traffic police and the people are getting a very non sense excuse of unavailability of paper for printing the cards while in real they are in tussle with the transport department and the people who get a license from the transport department, it is not accepted by the traffic police.

Same is the case with other departments, there is a complete haphazard like situation with full of confusion. Many projects were delayed for more than six months due to the introduction of consultancy services as monitoring body of the development projects. Now in April, they have issued all the tenders at once in hazardous situation that they itself have no clue of how to spend the current fiscal year budget.

PTI is not only in great pressure as a political organization but their government performance is also poor. In this type of situation, more pressure groups will be developed in the future.