General Pervez Musharraf is apparently intrigued why the print media does not fully project public approval of his government’s many admirable policies. Wherever he goes, he says, people praise him for the good and sincere efforts of his team. Yet he does not see this sufficiently reflected in the newspapers. So the conclusion is that the government’s media-managers must be lacking in ability and should be replaced by a more hands-on team.
This conclusion is misplaced. In many areas, this government is not doing as well as it thinks it is, or as well as it promised to do. So if the press is not exactly gushing with praise, the government’s media-managers can hardly be blamed. Equally, if some people are wont to bow and scrape before Caesar, he must beware the sycophants rather than insist on recording and projecting their hypocrisy.
The truth is that, despite its many shortcomings (a military regime is, by definition, anathema to a free press), General Musharraf’s government is still getting a fair press. This is partly because the political opposition has done nothing to inspire the imagination of the press or rekindle the faith of the people so that it can claim the headlines all over again. It is also because the Musharraf government has not blundered in anything that it must be constantly whipped in public and made to atone for its sins. In other words, the opposition is not “good” enough and the government is not “bad” enough to make for exciting, catchy copy. What could be better news for any government than that, considering that the last thing the press or public would ever want is to reverse the order of things and make life dull and boring and unprofitable because readers would stop reading and newspapers would stop selling and everybody, especially the government, would suffer the consequences of being “good”.
It is not advisable to “persuade” the media to present a “positive” picture of the government. How this is done is reprehensible. Officers reputed for being “intrusive” can be pulled out of obscurity and re-employed to “bend” the news. Friendly “advice” can then become “emphatic” and “leveraged” with subtle punitive gestures or not-so-subtle blandishments. Side by side with this, a core group of “journalists” who are always on the take, can be inspired to lull the government into a false sense of well-being and security. But such “media-management” cannot endear General Musharraf and his comrades to the public. Consider.
General Ayub Khan also believed that his “popular” image was not sufficiently reflected in the press. Therefore “good coverage” was predicated on the Press & Publications Ordinance 1963 (PPO) along with section 124 of the Penal Code outlawing criticism of government. But when the “needful” was not forthcoming, his media experts came up with the brilliant device of creating the “good deed” which could be blazoned in the subjugated press. Hence the “Decade of Reforms and Development” was launched as an image-building exercise. But when the end came it was obvious that the people had seen through the charade.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto went one step further in his efforts to stamp his charismatic achievements on the minds of the people. He whipped the press into submission only to rue the day when it did not rise to his defense when he was sent to the gallows by a dictator. General Zia ul Haq exhorted the press to be “good Muslims” doing “good business”, failing which they were flogged and/or imprisoned. But when he dived to his doom a decade later, no one in the press mourned his passing. Then came the era of “good government” (not good governance) under Mohammad Khan Junejo and Benazir Bhutto when the press was freed from the shackles of the PPO and the “good deeds” of “sympathetic” journalists were rewarded with cheques and good relations with press owners were based on generous newsprint quotas, duty-free machinery imports and lucrative advertisement handouts. Unfortunately, however, the “image-building” of the media-experts had no impact on the popularity graph of the governments which remained low.
Nawaz Sharif’s media-management was the most instructive. He left no stone unturned to try and build a “positive” image. Indeed, his passion for “positive coverage” was so intense that unprecedented lollipops were offered to friendly journalists, columnists and press barons who sang paeans to him. Equally, criticism was stifled with an iron hand when journalists were kidnapped, beaten up and accused of sedition. Yet, at the end of the day, his home-spun media experts and friendly press barons could not prevent his fall. In fact, his foul media-management became the yardstick by which his democratic government was condemned in favour of an undemocratic one when General Musharraf seized power.
General Musharraf must never forget this. The truth is that without advising, inducing or coercing the press — “managing” it in short — he still has a far better public image than any democratic or military ruler has had so far. The tonic criticism his government receives in the press is good for it. In the final analysis, what matters is good policies and competent performance rather than hollow images or shallow propaganda. The people are not fools. They know how to distinguish one from the other.