The Battle Within The Battle

Professor Adil Najam, on his very popular All Things Pakistan blog, featured 'Another Dark Day, But Hope Persists' - a guest post by Fawad, "a California-based literati-at-large" with an interesting blog, ‘Moments of Tranquility’, which you can read by clicking its link on my list of favourites in the right bar.

The post, dealing with the recent Karachi carnage, has attracted several comments (and continues to do so). Views often clash, as they should. However, as an off-shoot, a tangential debate on the place of citizen journalism has emerged. I am sure it will be of interest to bloggers at large (and very specially to those who have read Dr. Awab Alvi's recent posting on the Proud Pakistanis e-group).

I have taken the liberty (apologies, Adil) of extracting some of the pertinent comments from ATP to save you from sifting through the larger collection (although they are all worth a read in terms of the main theme, so do visit the ATP site).

Aqil Sajjad May 14th, 2007 at 10:53 am
And by the way, even pictures captured by the camera crews of the private channels can be anonymously put on-line unofficially if there is something worth broadcasting that the channels are unable to show due to some govt threat.

omar r. quraishi May 14th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
aqil you have no idea what your’e talking about [...] how many people do you think get their info from Youtube or blogs in the country — they get it from the print and electronic media

Aqil Sajjad May 14th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
The censorship pressure is undeniable (for some reason Omar gets angry when we mention it),

omar r. quraishi May 14th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
aqil — i dont get angry but kind of shocked because you have no idea what you’re talking about and when you’re corrected by people who are professional journalists you still insist on having your say

Sabahat May 15th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Mr. Omar R Qureshi: Whenever I read your comments I get the feeling that you are threatened by the ‘alternate media’ and are forever trying to impress upon people the weight that the print media and its ‘professional journalists’ have in your opinion. Nonetheless, slowly but surely that equilibrium is shifting, however much people like you may try and deny it. If I get no newspaper at my place and get all my news from either the net (online newspapers, blogs etc.) or television (and I am an ardent news follower) then I am sure there are others like me and in the coming years the number will only increase. Blogging may certainly not be as widespread a medium as the regular or print media but it has given a voice to people who have no vested interests, no advertisements to think of, no jobs being threatened and no editorship/censorship. Now obviously the above can be both a good and a bad thing but the fact of the matter is that it has its very own niche that newspapers cannot possibly have for they will forever be controlled in some way or the other.

As for Geo (as that is the only Jang Group part I can speak of with authority) it WAS certainly hedging and trying to play it safe, listening to Hamid Mir today on NDTV the fact hit home even more as he was far far more open in naming names while on NDTV compared to when he is on GEO.

Syed Talat Hussain is one of the few really brave and truly investigative journalists in Pakistan which is why he was targetted so on the 12th of May, GEO didn’t even come close to Aaj in their coverage. Even during the earthquake GEO had the utterly (PUKE PUKE) reprehensible Amir Liaquat Hussain insulting the thinking Pakistani’s intelligence whereas Talat Hussain dealt with the catastrophe with the dignity and heart it deserved.

As for your point about the print version of The News dealing with Hammad Raza’s death and not the online version, it is only when ‘professional journalists’ like you will start realizing the importance of news on the internet which is for more readily available will groups like The Jang Group really move forward in a new direction, till then you will continue to feel threatened by the ‘new media’ instead of embracing it and considering it an augmentation of the regular one and its friend and quirky partner.

omar r. quraishi May 16th, 2007 at 4:11 am
sabahat — you are living in dreamworld — the number of people who get their news from blogs is miniscule — in any case, just because it grows doesnt mean it comes at the expense of the other media — only an idiot like you would think that a journalist like me would actually be threatened by the alternate media — and even within the mainstream media there are alternative spaces — bet that didnt occur to you either

anyways i am not talking about geo but about the print media — also even when aaj tv was attacked they did not name the party either — and for your information no print media organisation has either — so to single out one publication is a bit disingenous on your part

also professional journalists do not think of adverts or vested interests when the do their job sabahat — your insinuations that they do are in poor taste

Sabahat May 16th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Mr. Quraishi: I think it may be a case of weak comprehension skills on your part, your ‘professional’ linguistic ability and ethic you have already revealed by the tone and content of your comment. You can protest against a State Minister resorting to abuse against a journalist but feel free to do the same yourself without batting an eyelid. You have unmasked your ‘professionalism’ right there. If I had been a young graduate begging for a job outside your office I may have been forced to stand such language from you but you know what Blogging has done? It has given me a voice that does not require putting up with a high handed authoritarian attitude, so I am afraid it is beginning to be a LITTLE hard to cow down the everyday man/woman’s opinion by declaring it asinine and throwing it across the table. This is a democracy that you just cannot do anything about, however much you may rant and rave.

also even when aaj tv was attacked they did not name the party either — and for your information no print media organisation has

Proves my point. It is only bloggers who can come out with the naked truth without any fears of losing a job or a license

I too said that blogging is very limited at the moment but in the future it will gain greater currency as blogs with cult following like ATP have shown. If you are talking about percentages, then how many people in Pakistan read an English daily in relation to the country’s total population? I assure you even less are bothered about your editorial piece hidden between reams of other assorted truths and half-truths.

The ‘alternative’ spaces within mainstream media are also controlled, it is only blogging that allows complete freedom and ownership to the individual and that is what I was talking about.

If you had actually read my comment (or understood it) you would have realized that I end it by talking about the alternative media working in tandem with the mainstream one, not pitting it against each other as most of your comments here seem to do. Each medium has its own limitations and its own strengths and they can work together to fill in where the other lacks.

Fawad May 16th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
@Sabahat,

I couldn’t agree more with you overall point that Mr. Quraishi is either willfully distorting the argument or doesn’t have the basic intelligence to understand the point. He doth protest too much. He is not even clear himself on what exactly he is defending other than ranting and raving about the virtuous print media and his own supposedly courageous op-ed piece. Again I want to emphasize what I have written before. The Pakistani press deserves praise for its courage under extreme duress but not acknowledging the limitations it works under or being able to see the value of the incredible and growing contribution of online media in opening up the dialog takes a peculiar personality and a head firmly lodged in sand.

omar r. quraishi May 16th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
fawad — welcome to living in a dream world as well — let me clarify i didnt call you an idiot sabahat, i called your remarks idiotic — the number of people who read english newspapers is far more than the number of people who read blogs — and the audience of the english press is quite different from the urdu press — smaller but far more influential as well —

and for the record, open your eyes ‘ms’ sabahat — i never said anywhere that the print media is high and mighty but yes do say that those who think that it is not doing its duty are telling lies themselves — and on this i proved it by posting several links from my own newspaper to refute two other interactors — i think people can say a lot in blogs because the medium and anonymity allows it — if you have a mob outside your house which is there to seek revenge after finding out you are writing against them on a blog then I will see your reaction — or i will ask you to be a reporter in a newspaper and see your reaction to threats — till then your posts are immature and idiotic — you have heard of the phrase ‘put up or shut up’ i hope

omar r. quraishi May 16th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
fawad — open your eyes and learn to read — no one is denying the limitations but there is a difference between saying that the media works under a lot of censorship and tries to do its job and saying that it is a sell-out (because of the govt pressure)

– i edit the editorial pages of one of the country’s largest english newspapers and have yet to receive any call from any minister or govt official or the publisher for that matter telling me what to do — like i said you guys have no idea of what you are talking about or of how journalists go about carrying out their duties in real life

also sabahat if you read a bit, you would have noticed that in my own columns and editorials i have written about the increasing popularity of blogs and the web — but it is still very very limited

omar r. quraishi May 16th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
sabahat wrote: “. If I had been a young graduate begging for a job outside your office I may have been forced to stand such language from you but you know what….”

what gives sabahat — do you suffer from some severe complex or what — i am not the one who launched in a personal attack for no reason here — stop insinuating about my professional work ethic, or lack thereof, please —

the problem with people like you is that they see everything in black or white — you thrive on generalisations — the media is all bad — everything they say is a lie — good grief! you need to get out of your protected blog-existence

Only on the Internet could a professional print journalist (albeit one of no particular import in terms of personal writings, regardless of the 'official' position he holds) write such trash or behave so unprofessionally - telling others they don't know what they are talking about, calling them idiots, making sarcastic but meaningless personal comments - such as asking the author of the original post to 'learn to read', and living in a dreamworld thinking everyone else lives in one.

Although Omar R Qureshi's comments must have upset many, both for their tone and content, we see that this democratic medium - which could have been used to call him the many things he more than deserves - has shown more decency and decorum in allowing him to express his inane views and use language that his medium of choice (or his newspaper) would not permit.

The times, Mr. Print Journalist, are a-changing. Wake up! You are young enough to be writing (hopefully more maturely and with fewer knee-jerk, personal reactions and with certainly a less authoritarian tone - difficult to shed, I agree, when brought up under years of martial regimes!), in times ahead, for this medium which will be there for a long, long while after print journalism has further lost it's relevance and impact and only the best among it survive.