Just how “free” is the press these days? Ask politicians in power and you’re likely to get an earful: “Free press?”, they croak, “They’re a bunch of anarchistic blackmailers!”
Before some of you cluck in sympathy, dear readers, consider what the press has to put up with. The government hands out advertisements and newsprint quotas. If the press doesn’t tow its line, it can hardly make ends meet. But this is just for starters. The press is often pressurized to carry stories which it suspects to be motivated and malicious or knows to be false. These stories, in newsspeak, are called “plants”. The purpose of “planting” them is to dis-inform readers for political ends. Harassed editors and lowly paid reporters are easy prey for the machinations of those who run the dirty-tricks department of the government in power.
The phenomenon of “planted” stories isn’t new. But of late the papers seem to be overflowing with them. Here’s an example. Last week, the government was reported as saying that the army would be withdrawn from flood-relief work because it was hogging the show. This week we’re informed that the PM has decided to let the army carry on, despite advice to the contrary from his ministers. Both stories were
“planted”. The idea was to send a message to the army: “I am solidly behind you, my dear armymen, despite what my ministers say — Yours, as ever, PM!”
Or take a recent interview with Murtaza Bhutto. Although this was exclusive to The News, most papers carried an extracted version of it, along with acknowledgements to The News for purposes of authenticity. This is decidedly strange. Even when some papers occasionally “lift” a story from a local competitor, they never credit it for doing the original homework. Instead, references are made to un-named
daily” or “weekly” sources. In the case of the Bhutto interview, the government’s news agency, APP, made a ‘suitable’ summary of the text and sent it poste haste on the wires. Half a dozen phone calls by the dirty tricksters in Islamabad to journalists and, hey, presto, the APP story” was at every reader’s doorstep next morning!
The art of “planting” stories was perfected single- handedly by a former journalist-turned-adviser in Mian Nawaz Sharif’s cabal during 1988-90. The youthful adviser first gave away dozens of “plots” to deserving hacks and then began a daily routine of ringing them up at around mid-night to dictate the headlines. Ms Benazir Bhutto could never find anyone who was a patch on Mian Sahib’s “adviser”. That’s how she “lost” the battle for the hearts and minds of newspaper readers.
The “planting” technique has now been usurped from the former “advisor” by our chief spook at the Intelligence Bureau, Brig (retd) Imtiaz Ahmad, who likes to flog his image as a modern-day, Pakistani version of Bond, James Bond, 007, as per an Islamabad daily. The Murtaza Bhutto interview, say his friends, is 007’s stinging reply to the
Midnight Jackal” tapes which portray the good ol’ Brig as a treasonable conspirator par excellence. This was followed by Chaudhry Anwar Aziz’s defence of Maj (retd) Amir. Ch Sahib is a rebel without a cause. The poor fellow has a couple of murder cases pending against him for incurring the wrath of Brig Sahib during the last elections. At the least, we expect, Ch Sahib will extract a fair price from Brig Sahib withdrawal of cases) for speaking on his behalf. Now, there’s another “plant” by “our correspondent” in a Lahore daily. “Operation Midnight Jackals is a conspiracy by the PPP against the ISI” it says, “sources revealed that the PPP had no video film of this scandal”. Nonsense. There is, indeed, a film of the whole drama. The only reason the PPP hasn’t shown it is that all the conspirators in it seem to be sitting on the ceiling! (the spy cameras were fixed upside down — so much for the PPP’s efficiency!).
Is this a picture of a “free” press, we ask you? Hardly. The APP, PPI and other “agencies” are not free souls. If they don’t tow the line, it’s curtains for them. Many small papers and periodicals are especially vulnerable because government ads are their sole means of survival.
“Planted” stories are therefore the stuff of everyday compromises. Not every journalist can tell 007 to go fly a kite.
Meanwhile, the press remains under attack. Now Mir Shakil ur Rehman and Dr Maleeha Lodhi of The News have been charged with sedition, thanks to arch-patriot 007, for publishing a short Urdu poem from a reader. The idea is to teach the press “a suitable lesson”. Other journalists and papers may be targeted in due course.
No matter. The press has survived the ravages of Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Zia ul Haq. If Islamabad thinks it has a monopoly on ‘patriotism’ and ‘constitutionality’, it is sadly mistaken. The people and the press will have the last laugh on the new warlords.
So we say, give us a break. It’s a vicious world out there. We may not always deliver. But thank God we manage to survive.