More than any other politician, the press is prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s favourite punching bag. If he could have his way, only the National Press Trust would live to see the light of print. Unfortunately for him, however, he is committed to privatisation and must learn to live, as best he can, with a world without his public sector mouthpieces. Unfortunately, too, he seems to be having great difficulty coming to terms with this reality.
Shortly after assuming power, Mr Sharif secretly tried to draw up a draft of sinister new laws “to deal with the press”. He was abetted in this villainous plot by none other than the foulmouthed press-basher Sheikh Rashid, his former information minister and erstwhile Punj Pyara. Fortunately, the draft was leaked by discerning bureaucrats. Outraged editors closed ranks and forced the prime minister to beat a hasty retreat. But Mr Sharif did the next best thing he could think of: he called in the editors, dined them at his sumptuous new abode which is on a hill higher than the President’s, and lectured them on the dos and don’ts of patriotic journalism. He also got himself a brand new information secretary and principal information officer to peddle his point of view.
Alas. The tactic has misfired. If anything, relations between his minions in the information ministry and the press seem to have gone from bad to worse. Despite dangling the carrot of advertisements and brandishing the stick of press-advice, which are much in evidence today and desperately hard to resist, the press refuses to buckle down and resents encroachments on its freedom. Things are so bad these days that even the prime minister’s personal friendship with the top owner-editor in the country appears to have taken a tumble.
Mr Sharif has now embarked upon a new strategy. He says he is going to ask “the people” to hold the press “accountable” for its sins of commission. Well, well. Here is a new word in the prime minister’s glossary. Isn’t Mr Sharif is a fine one to talk about “accountability”? Without going into the merits or otherwise of “accountability” in this country, he might be advised to watch out for his own accountability if he is not careful.
The press is nobody’s private property, least of all the government in power. Its proper job is to report the news and help analyse it. Two questions arise here: one, what is “news” and, two, who makes the “news”?
The government of the day is the most important source of news. When people elect a government, they expect it to deliver on its many promises. If it does, that is “news”, and if it doesn’t, that is also “news”. But there is a free-market caveat here. By definition, newspapers have to sell in order to live. Thus readers think “Dog bites man” is no “news” while “Man bites dog” certainly is. What does this mean?
It means that some “news” is more urgent, interesting or meaningful to readers than other “news”. It means people are more interested in finding out what the government is actually doing rather than what it says it is doing. It means that when something out of the ordinary or expected happens, like when the prime minister flies out to Austria for no apparent rhyme or reason while the crisis in Afghanistan is crying out for an urgent solution, it is “news”. However, it is not “news” when he dashes off to the USA to briefly attend to an ailing relative. It is “news’ when the prime minister is reprimanded by the President and not “news” when he is ticked off by his wife. It is “news” when Qazi Hussain doesn’t invite Nawaz Sharif to his son’s wedding and not “news” when he invites Ghulam Ishaq Khan. It is “news” when Nawaz Sharif cajoles John Major to give him an hour of his time at the Lord’s cricket match on June 16th and not “news” when Mr Sharif cracks a few boundaries at the expense of the lads at the local Gymkhana every Thursday. And so on.
Truth, as everyone knows, is stranger than fiction and sells better. And truth will out in the end. If the truth is that Mian Nawaz Sharif is in trouble, readers want to know who says so and why. If the truth is that Mian Nawaz Sharif’s family fortunes have soared, readers will want to ask how and why. And so on.
The press has its job cut out for it. It must push on relentlessly, without fear or favour, in search of the truth. If the prime minister wants to instigate “the people” to hold the press “accountable”, by all means let him try. By the same token, however, the press owes it to “the people” to expose the corruptions of power, greed and hypocrisy in Islamabad.
In fact, the real complaint should be that the press isn’t doing enough to ferret the truth. That many journalists are paid by the government not to write the truth. That only a handful of small journals are independent. To be truly free, the press must indeed hold itself accountable. But the prime minister should be the last person to give such advice.