Once upon a khabarnama...

when mushie chacha turned off the channels in november 2007, many journalists took to the streets. in karachi, one particular protest was shut down by the police, and the participants arrested. later, they would quote the experience when they spoke of being 'hardened journalists' who bore the brunt of 'a repressive military regime as they fought for the freedom of speech while rocking out to rage against the machine.' 


what most of them failed to mention was how their stay in jail for a few hours involved being brought over pizzas and cans of soft drinks as well as untold cartons of cigarettes.


the point being, that sometimes things aren't what they seem. 


so when dawn.com had issues with my second consecutive blog because of things i was saying about their other employees, i decided to put it on my blog, which is only beholden to me. this doesn't stand as an example of censorship or any such malarkey, for several reasons. the most important one being that in both cases, the references to dawn employees was not an indictment of them personally, nor was it a personal vendetta against two popular and well respected men. instead, it was an attempt to contextualise their words and actions.


so, without further ado, here it is.

Before disney took over the job, fairy tales were the realm of the spoken word.

instead of animation, grandmothers, or audio cassettes, usually took upon the role of reading out elaborate tales of fantasy, adventure, bravery and magic. each tale was embellished with fascinating characters with pretty one-dimensional personalities. 

the brave prince, the wronged princess, the devious churail, the friendly giant, the mischievous gnomes, vengeful pirates, bashful fairies, scheming sorcerers, generous djinns, 40 crafty thieves - you get the picture.

for the story teller, the liberating aspect of this exercise was the ability to create a whole world, populate it with characters, and trust that the listener would take that on face value.

there wasn't any necessity to provide context. the evil king was evil because that's what the story said - no one asked to hear about his human rights record, or his control over his kingdom's sovereignty. 

a few days ago, one of pakistan's most respected journalists wrote a rather curious article, in which he spent a long time dissecting the life and times of Angelina Jolie.

the inquest resulted in a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudge innuendo, and some outright tamachay on the wisdom and choices of Ms. Jolie. 

now several blogs took apart this approach on the interwebs, and i'll leave you to judge for yourself. but personally, the basic question that arises upon reading this column is why unleash this maelstrom of mense on the actress, who after all was working recently for flood relief victims in pakistan?

a quick glance at the article reveals the answer.

the article's conclusion was related to ms. jolie's complaints about the excesses of the Pakistani government. according to the scribe, this was how low the government's stock had reached - that even a person with morals as allegedly dubious as Angelina bhabi looked down upon the rulers in islamabad.

now, if we step back, and ignore the spicy gossip strewn all over this column, a more primeval reaction arises - 'huh?'

what is the point of all this?

well, pyare bacho, the point is that in order to provide context to a story, to an event, to any scrap of news, one has to create a narrative.

a narrative requires certain characters, certain events and their consequences in order to provide a conclusion. 

narratives help provide allegories, examples and advice on how to make sense of the world. to provide a beginning, middle and end. and the simpler the narrative, the flatter the characters, the more emphatic its message becomes.

in pakistan, where we are saturated by news and nothing but news all the time, it appears that we have put our grandmothers to sleep and turned on the television for our fairy tales.

and so each day, we stare agog at our screens, as wise men narrate epic tales of evil plotters, court room intrigue, daring heros, corrupt rulers, oppressed masses, wanton destruction, foreign hands and local bodies. 

unfortunately, while our grandmothers would end the fairy tales when we started to fall asleep, the modern story tellers just don't let up. and so if our attention begins to waver, they conjure up even more exoticised characters, whose benign actions become symbols of societal malaise. they start weaving together completely unrelated fantasies and present them as a cohesive whole.

like the amorous, brazen queen of the heathen tribes of the west, who visited this fair kingdom, and even she, this insatiable devourer of men, was left ashamed by the excesses of the evil king and his supporters.

i wonder who disney would get to play the role of the grand vizier?

Nawaz Sharif Mujra Scandal

its the season of the IPL and the season of T20. as i have argued previously, this event is a wonderful example of post-modernism, which, in the timeless words of Moe means "weird for the sake of being weird."

of course, for many T20 is an abhorrent, vile, abominable bastardisation of cricket. and many people have expressed such thoughts on twitter, missing the delectable irony of it all.

i started frequenting twitter recently after one of my regular reads migrated there. apart from the grotesque picture which adorns his page (seriously, you couldn't find a better messi picture?) it does provide an interesting insight into the evolving dynamics of this micro-blogging phenomenon.

as far as i can tell, its a bit like facebook for famous people, with the various castes defined by the level of fame.

so for example, there is a clutch of pakistani bloggers who communicate with themselves. and then there are journos, who talk to themselves, and the occasional politicians. who follow themselves, and bigger fish. and it goes on. my favourite sighting was ImranKhanPTI following Jemima on twitter. cue the laugh track.

but it was during this forage into twitterdom that i came across a certain account. the backstory for this was perhaps the greatest story to hit the news media since Nawaz Sharif remembered who butters his bread - the impending nuptials of Sania and Shoaib.

i found this page, which is Shoaib Malik's twitter page. its pretty ordinary, and quite what i expected - shoaib can be seen trying to contact yuvraj and warne, much in the vein of the upward social aspirations of all twitterati.

his recent tweets thank his fans for the goodwill surrounding his wedding, and previously he talks about trying to find a legal team for his PCB troubles. and before that he celebrates the win for Sialkot Stallions etc.

then, i found out, from his future wife, that his twitter page is fake.

WTF?

firstly, we have to believe this, since hopefully she would know better than anyone else. moreover, as someone mentioned, shoaib can never be expected to be this articulate.

having conceded that, we now must wonder - WTF?

try and understand this. there is someone out there who meticulously imagines the feelings shoaib malik goes through. more importantly, said person makes sure to write them within the time frame when they happen. so he makes sure that any important event in shoaib's life is updated asap.

what makes this even more intriguing is that there is no whiff of scandal, of aggrandizement, of mirch-masala here. all the tweets are of the typical mundanity that twitter tweets are comprised of. nothing here that makes you think, hang on, this is fake. and the internet, other than for porn, is meant for people to shout out FAKE whenever they get the chance. we are conditioned to spot fakes.

but... where is the fakeness, fake shoaib malik? what has compelled you to give up your life and your time and devote it to creating a shrine for someone not quite compelling (not until the Sania bombshell anyways) why have you not chosen your position to create mischief or abuse? how are you such a restrained fake personality, that you have actually managed to come across as more respectable than the real person you pretend to be?

perhaps the truth lies in believing in your own hype. in thinking that what you are doing is so right that you forget that your basis was baloney. perhaps when you start believing your own bullshit, you forget the lies you created and accept your own cocoon as the only bastion of reality.

and perhaps you can even make such a charade last forever.

until... until you begin believing your own batshit craziness so much that you decide to hold a grand rally where you promise to proclaim the greatness of your message. and your deluded followers decide to honor your much awaited rally with a rather slickly produced amateur video.

until the day your grand rally to end all rallies, the moment of truth, the launching of the invasion of the infidels, the realisation of existential islamic philosophy, the birth of the United States of Islam, the call of the army of Truth, the greatest moment of history in all histories arrives.

and, like, no one shows up.

What is this Media-Shedia? Guest blog by Jaahil Journalist

“Modern journalism is about providing the kind of spin your audience is interested in.”

-Salman Rushdie
(heavily paraphrased, just as he would like it)

The consumer of news media/journalism is not asking for an objective opinion. They are instead asking for the confirmation of their own biases. The point of the market is to provide enough unique outlets for the specific type of bias prevalent in society.
There is no such thing as objective journalism. If you think an article on say Jirgas should have quotes from thirty different analysts, it means that this is what you believe to be a standard of objectivity. That is the bias you have that you wish to have fulfilled.

That’s why the Daily Show and The O’Reilly Factor are the biggest news shows in America. It’s because both present the kind of experience that their consumers are demanding. It’s important to note that in order to maintain the idea they represent, both Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly go through great pain to assert that they are not ‘conventional’ journalists. Stewart maintains that his show is about shits and giggles. O’Reilly has the “No Spin Zone’ to try and assert that while news is always spin, in his zone there is no such cause for concern.

Try telling that to the millions that tune into their shows. The very fact that both hosts deny they are ‘conventional’ journalists serves to boost their credibility in the eyes of their viewers.

"Some of today's top journalists appeal to distinct constituencies reflecting the nature of their audiences. For example, Bill O'Reilly tops the list of most admired journalists among Republicans – 10% name the Fox News Channel talk show host. Only 2% of Democrats and Independents name O'Reilly. Much of Katie Couric's support comes from women: 7% of women name Couric as the news person they admire most compared to 2% of men. And Jon Stewart, host of the Daily Show on Comedy Central, is popular mainly with young people. Among those under age 30, 6% say Stewart is their favorite journalist, making him along with O'Reilly the top pick among this age group. This compares with less than 1% of those over age 30, who admire Stewart most."

Forget objectivity. You can never have that. Consider the following two sentences:

“Thus it can be argued that the idea of nationhood is little more than the idea of a corporate brand.”

“Thus it can be argued that the idea of nationhood is just as important as the idea of a corporate brand.”

Both sentences are saying the same thing – that brands and nationhood are pretty much the same. But one implies that brands are shit, and thus so are nations. The other says that ‘look, this is how good brands are, and nations can be just as good.’

Maybe you don’t like the example. Who cares what you think. The point is that bias is impossible to avoid when you have to make a value judgment. Want to know how ‘reputable’ news organizations get around this problem? They blame it on someone else.

Specifically, they refer to ‘analysts’ or ‘anonymous sources who wished to maintain their privacy because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.’ Or if they are just fucking desperate, they refer to ‘word on the street.’ It doesn’t really matter. And it’s not necessarily true that they just make up these mysterious sources. The sad truth is that a source with a given opinion can always be found.

You want to slag off Musharraf? You invite Imran Khan, or Qazi Hussein to your show. Don’t have to say anything yourself, yet you can get him to be your mouthpiece.

And there is no objectivity to this. Because even if you think that inviting these particular people will make the show anti-Musharraf, you know that inviting Malik Qayyum or someone would make it slant the other way. Or you can get someone who is supposed to be impartial, and you’ll get a mouthful of Western based academic thought, mostly associated with the idea of building democratic institutions and what not. Or you can invite an apolitical mullah (they do exist you know) and get a mouthful of Islamic nationalist-pan nationalist rhetoric.

And if you’ve been in the business for a while, you KNOW which guests to invite for what kind of show. It’s not like you can avoid it.

What gets me tickled to no end is how people think the media has a lot of power. They do have it, but it’s not like they can be completely autocratic about it. See they can’t force you to watch what they are showing. They need you to be watching. So they will play to the galleries.

Don’t blame them for it, it’s their job*.

*In fact, fuck all of you self righteous types. Like you were ever part of something beyond reproach. Learn to make changes, and not just pick on something you can complain about from a high horse, while continuing to live like a selfish prick the rest of the time.

So the media can’t make enemies until someone has enemies. Then they dress up the bandwagon and offer people free rides. And like a successful amusement park, the point is to get people to come on your rides. Little else.

And no, the media has no other responsibility. Because if it did, it should have its employees paid by your pocket. You are not paying shit, so stop thinking you have a say over what is aired. All you can do is switch the channel until you find someone who speaks your kind of bias

A Day in the Life - 04.04.08

Text document Fbl-Afr-C2, PREVIEW April 04, 2008 10:57:04 AM [Load]
Football: Moroccan minnows on verge of sensational success

by Allan Williams
=(FILE PICTURE)=
JOHANNESBURG, April 4, 2008 (AFP) - Rachad Barnoussi are not good enough to play top-flight football in Morocco.

According to the book, during the frequent meetings which intervened before the creation of the club, one of the founder members arrived late, the reason was that he watched the latest film of the actress and Egyptian singer legend Oum Kaltoum, whose title is "Wydad". Thus came the idea to the founders to give the name to the club.

Israel now wants the West Bank to be turned into Tel Aviv while Hamas reflects what the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was back in 1986. Arab leaders are sitting down, also playing the game.

"And that is why veterans are the best peacekeepers. They know the value of human life. Even though they might smoke or drink, the sense of justice in them is the strongest."

Russia was the big white elephant in the Romanian parliament building and was the first black model to appear on the covers of Time magazine and both French and British Vogue.

Everybody sensed that this was heading toward disaster. King expressed premonitions of his murder in the “Mountaintop” speech. City officials worried about his assassination to reporters. The K.K.K. stayed out of Memphis so it wouldn’t get blamed if he was killed.

When the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public, we were told these were the depraved actions of a few soldiers. The Yoo memo makes it chillingly apparent that senior officials authorized unspeakable acts and went to great lengths to shield themselves from prosecution.

It was that the American public would be horribly offended by the idea of a nuclear death toll that included hundreds of thousands of men, women and children plus one monkey. Leave the monkeys out of it, they would have said. Just slaughter those Russians yourself.

"He said: 'There are 12 infallible Imams, and there are 12 Mahdis. The first of the Mahdis is Ahmad ibn Al-Hassan.' I asked him: 'How can it be that he is the first of the Mahdis?' He told me that [Ahmad ibn Al-Hassan] has all the markings - a scar on his back, a mark here on his forehead, something in his eye... They wanted me to carry out operations, but I said I wasn't mentally prepared for that, because I had just left a large political movement, and so on. I started lying to them to evade those military operations. At that point, I was beginning to have my suspicions that this was not really a movement of the Imam Al-Mahdi or his son. Right. I saw that they had DShK machine-guns. Does the Imam Al-Mahdi need to use DShK machine-guns?!