On Friday a PML-N MPA from Faisalabad rapped the media and defended law minister Rana Sanaullah and prisons minister Abdul Ghafoor who, according to him, were 'lampooned by a private channel talk show'. The channel's entertainment programme, it was maintained, was defamatory and contained allegations against the provincial Law Minister.
Another PML-N MPA warned his colleagues "Today is the treasury, tomorrow it would be opposition or anybody else. The media needs to be knocked in line if it does not behave." The opposition protested saying that the freedom of the media should not be curbed by any means.
The speaker of the Punjab Assembly gave a ruling on the ethics of the electronic media, calling on it not to air defamatory remarks or discuss politicians' personal matters in their broadcasts. The outburst against the media in the Punjab Assembly was uncalled for. The media simply reflects what is happening in society. By doing so, it exposes the shortcomings, foibles, shenanigans and deviations from law by the ruling elite. Taken in a positive stride, this can help the rulers improve their governance and recover ground lost through mistakes.
It is in the interest of the bureaucracy to send reports of 'all is fine,' while sycophants, who tend to gather around every ruler, do their best to paint a rosy picture thus keeping the rulers ignorant of what people actually think about them till the situation becomes irretrievable and there is nothing the government can do to save itself from their wrath. Media reports also raise public awareness about grave policy failures that can lead to national disasters.
Seymour Hersh's report about the 1968 bloody Mai Lai massacre that President Johnson's administration had tried hard to cover up, played a significant role in raising the awareness of the Americans about the horrors being inflicted on the Vietnamese, leading to a sea change in public opinion that was to bring the war to an end seven years later.
Similarly another report by the same journalist that exposed the abuses at the notorious Abu Ghuraib prison, put the supporters of the Iraq war on the defensive and provided material to the Democrats, who were being silenced in the name of patriotism to discredit the war.
President Bush was lampooned much more than any Pakistani leader on account of his personal weaknesses, as well as for his politics by a number of mediamen including Michael Moore whose "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a devastating exposure of Bush as a man and a politician. The President neither took the issue to the Congress nor did he seek the court's help.
Pakistani media has, in fact, helped political parties locate and take action against the black sheep in their ranks, which has benefited them a lot. In June last year, a media report about a PML-N MNA from Rawalpindi being involved in an examinations scandal led the party to set up a committee to investigate the report. The MNA was subsequently told to resign.
In July, the media brought to light the scandal about a legislator from Punjab who had used a stolen credit card to buy jewellery worth Rs 80,000. An enquiry committee subsequently forced the reluctant lady to resign from her seat. By getting rid of such elements, made possible by media exposure, democracy and rule of law were strengthened, rather than weakened.
It was on the basis of the reports by media that the PML-N appointed a committee to investigate charges against the Law Minister Punjab of having built a plaza against rules. It goes to his party's credit that it has set up a committee to investigate the charges while asking him not to perform his duties as a minister.
Public personalities have to be highly careful about their reputation. The politicians' personal and social behaviour is constantly under public watch. The media only mirrors what the public generally thinks about them. It is in the politicians' own interest to give due importance to the message rather than shoot the messenger.