Print in digital age
THERE is a shocking amount of disinformation out there in the Information Age. While electronic and social media have radically changed how news is produced and consumed, responsible print media outlets continue to hold fast to the old-world values of factual reporting and upholding truth-telling. This is the message being relayed by the All Pakistan Newspapers Society through a public awareness campaign launched in connection with National Newspaper Readership Day, being observed today. The day was first observed in 2019, and seeks to highlight the value of print journalism and promote newspaper readership in a rapidly changing media landscape. While the future is digital, print media will play a key role in the transition; for example, even the most trusted digital news outlets in the country are in fact extensions of legacy media houses. There is an important reason for this: it is the editorial gatekeeping of print media professionals that sifts lies from truth, disinformation from genuine news. Social media may be awash with ‘information’ —much of it actually noise and outright lies — but it is traditional media, especially print, that assures people that what they are reading is corroborated and factually correct.
However, it is also true that legacy media must adapt to the swiftly changing scenario. For obvious reasons, print cannot compete with electronic and digital media when it comes to ‘breaking news’. That is why newspapers should refocus efforts on investigative and long-form journalism, which can delve into the backstory and dive deeper to uncover the events behind the headlines. Regurgitating facts 24 hours after they have happened, and relying on he-said, she-said ‘news stories’ will only speed up the demise of print. It is by emphasising quality journalism that the more established papers in the West have managed to stay afloat. By upholding the principles of journalism, and speaking for the voiceless, print can continue to stay relevant.
Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2023
Sanaullah’s remarks
THE hypocrisy of our democratic leadership is a gift that keeps giving. Last week, the president of the PML-N in Punjab, Rana Sanaullah, berated the former army chief, retired Gen Qamar Bajwa, as a “national criminal” who had committed a “crime bigger than a murder offence”. He was echoing a statement made by his party’s supreme leader, Nawaz Sharif, who has on several occasions held Mr Bajwa directly responsible for his ouster and now wishes for him to be held to account for his ‘crimes’. Just a day later, however, Mr Sanaullah all but confirmed a long-held suspicion that his party had also colluded with Gen Bajwa in its efforts to remove the PTI from power. Mr Sanaullah had been asked during a TV interview why the PML-N supported a three-year extension for Gen Bajwa in 2019, which he described as a ‘strategic move’. “It would seem that the consequences of that decision allowed us to achieve our goal,” Mr Sanaullah said — the goal being to lower the “intensity” with which the “fitna” and “fasaad” of the PTI was prevailing over the country at the time. “Sometimes things seem a certain way, but their implied effects [sic] are something else,” the PML-N leader concluded.
Was it hubris that led Mr Sanaullah to implicate the PML-N and the military in what he has made out to be a conspiracy, sealed with a quid pro quo deal, to unseat the PTI government? Or did he wish to imply that the PML-N had, with its political guile, ‘used’ the former army chief to achieve its own political goals? Considering the number of times former PM Shehbaz Sharif publicly thanked and congratulated Gen Bajwa for his services while he was in office, it is difficult to reconcile the PML-N’s new stance with its leaders’ effervescent gratitude while in power. Rank hypocrisy or realpolitik? Time will tell. One can also not help but recall how both Gen Bajwa and ISPR repeatedly assured the public of their ‘neutrality’ amidst the political chaos that broke out in 2022. The main beneficiary of the PTI’s downfall now suggests that was not the case. Can the PTI chief be faulted, then, for turning his ire on that institution’s leadership if he had correctly identified the role they had played? Perhaps such questions are best left for another time.
Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2023
On the brink
T is Pakistan’s moment of reckoning. Words of warning are pouring in to remind the leadership and the people that the country continues to face existential challenges.
The other day, the IMF chief urged the caretaker prime minister and Pakistanis to collect taxes from the wealthy and subsidise the poor, who are being crushed under the soaring cost of living.
On Friday, Najy Benhassine, World Bank country manager for Pakistan, underscored that the state was at a crucial juncture where it must decide whether it wants to continue with 40pc of its population living below the poverty line, with policy decisions being driven by a military, political and business elite that has vested interests, or to change direction towards a better future.
“This may be Pakistan’s moment in making policy shifts,” he argued, while releasing a set of policy notes — Reforms For a Brighter Future: Time to Decide — to be discussed and finalised before a new government takes over after elections, due to be held in the last week of January next year.
He pointed out that states with steady and higher economic growth, such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam, were able to fend off similar difficulties as they tackled their respective crises through making the right decisions.
The economic quandary that a country of 240m people finds itself facing today is of its own making. Stuck in the midst of grave human resource and financial troubles, Pakistan is contending with complex challenges that need to be addressed and tackled simultaneously if it is to extricate itself from the current crisis and move forward.
One cannot expect to collect more taxes and to grow economically without improving sound public services such as education, healthcare and drinking water.
Likewise, balance-of-payments issues cannot be resolved without boosting productivity, and investing in an educated and healthy labour force as well as in climate-resilient infrastructure. Everyone and every sector has to rise together, in sync, if this country is to put itself on a progressive trajectory.
This is not the first time that global lenders such as the IMF and World Bank, which we always lean on for help during what seem to be perpetually hard times, have advised us on what we should do. And it is not as if our ruling classes and policymakers are unaware of the problems or their solutions.
Yet these constant reminders underline how the vested interests that the World Bank country chief alluded to are impeding much-needed reforms to restructure the economy.
If we are to revive the economy, every stakeholder that Mr Benhassine has mentioned should ask themselves whether they want short-term gains at the expense of the country and its people, or longer-term stability that can allow us to function and have a future to look forward to.
Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2023