Why DUNYA TV can never be trusted again...

For a while now there has been a discussion about the role that the media plays. Throughout that discussion it has always been said that the media is unbiased and it is doing its duty of bringing hard facts to viewers spread all across Pakistan. The assumption has been that no matter who owned the media outlet it would be totally unbiased when it came to reporting. And yet all the viewers and everyone involved always knew that every channel had a specific agenda and that it would always push forward its own version of the truth rather than just the facts.  Actually this case was made in detail recently by a friend of mine in his article that can be found here. So given we all knew this already, yesterday's DUNYA TV episode or shall we just call it a broadcast was one of the saddest and most disturbing things I have seen in my life.

The All Knowing....Lucman

Starting with Mubasher Lucman, who is a talk show host somehow and claims to be seeking justice for all and yet he is the guy who still owes USD 80,000 to a studio in Thailand, who went on a rant over the phone saying that Punjab has Bird Flu. Then slowly like a pathetic tabloid story, the longer his argument went on, the clearer it became that there was nothing to it. But while this conclusion was reached, he had already blamed the Government of Punjab about 50 times. So in recap, he blamed the Govt. of Punjab for the Bird Flu that does not exist. Funny enough this story came in print a few days ago, and upon talking to one of the office bearers of the Poultry Association I was told that it was a rumor to bring down the price of Chicken which recently has gone up quite a bit. It is a week old story but it was soon cleared up and retracted. But Mubasher Lucman, went on National TV or whatever DUNYA TV is, and started this rumor again without any solid proof. Within hours, DUNYA TV had successfully managed to play with livelihoods of millions of people in Punjab without any proof just for the sake of making Government of Punjab look bad.

Actual FIR that was filed against Mian Amir by the Father of one of the girls killed

Then came the  news bulletins, where most of the headlines were categorically against the ruling government in Punjab. I mean it came to a point where it was insane; they stopped trying to hide their hatred and just went full on against them. Be it the non Bird Flu story or the Building Collapse, everything was just simply blamed and somehow tied to the Government in Punjab. It became even sadder when DUNYA TV figured out that an FIR had been lodged against their owner, Mian Amir who also happens to own the Punjab Group of Colleges. And that is when the figurative shit hit the fan for DUNYA TV. Within a space of 5 minutes, they went ballistic as if their offices were under siege and they were broadcasting live from Homs in Syria rather than from their comfy office block in Lahore. They actually had violin music playing in the background while they narrated the story of HOW THE GOVERNMENT OF PUNJAB HAD LODGED AN FIR AGAINST THEIR OWNER because DUNYA TV was saying the TRUTH. Now this claim on its own is misreporting of the highest order as the Government of Punjab did not do that. It was the father of one of the girls killed at Punjab College’s Concert in Lahore. And to prove it, the picture above is of the FIR. IF you do not know this story, let me explain. You remember a few weeks ago there was a stampede at a college concert in Lahore which was played out as the Atif Aslam Concert where the exit doors were shut down and a bomb threat caused a stampede resulting the deaths of three girls. Well that story was killed off very quickly and it did not even play once on DUNYA TV because the owner of that college was Mian Amir, who also owns Dunya TV.  But after failing to pay off the victim’s family, an FIR was lodged.

Owner Dunya TV and Punjab Group of
Colleges

But DUNYA TV took this and turned it in to something that could give them political Milage by saying the Government of Punjab did this. And what is worse is while they were reporting that the FIR was filed, they did not mention even once in 3 hours for exactly what instance was it filed instead they did their best to spread the narrative that it because DUNYA TV had raised the Punjab Institute of Cardiology story and now they were being punished for it. Logically if that were the case, GEO and Express would have been screwed over too but no DUNYA TV did not think of that logic. 

The fact of the matter is, this whole episode has shown how childish our media is. Within 4 hours, one media group for its own purposes had spread a rumor that affects the livelihoods of millions of people and then had managed to snub a story about their sister concern (Punjab Colleges) and turn that in to a story of political victimization. All this took 4 hours. That is scary to say the least.

While this discussion on responsible media and the need for media’s role to be well defined, we need to start moving towards specifics now. The time for awareness and advocacy is nearly over; actual actions need to be taken now. Things like what DUNYA TV did yesterday cannot be tolerated in decent or even semi-decent societies where a news channel can endanger millions of livelihoods and then cry political victimization as part of its grand scheme of blackmailing a provincial government. We as the citizens cannot sit ideally by and let this happen because it is insulting to our intelligence.  Channels like DUNYA TV cannot be allowed to continue claiming that they are independent and unbiased. They need to clarify that they are agenda based news outlets there to provide cover for their owners’ other business ventures because that is a fact. It is about time we start calling things as they are instead of hiding behind the myth of being unbiased and objective.

And just to remind you, Mubasher Lucman, who always goes around claiming to be honest is the same guy who bought Twitter Followers. Who does that? And yet this guy did. So think about his mentality next time you hear anything coming from his mouth. And for your comic pleasure following is the video where he makes a claim about Bird Flu without presenting an iota of proof and the Anchor lets him go on without once asking for evidence.