Those who wrote editorials in newspapers have always been held in high esteem by every thinking mind. They are in different league. They are a notch above the rest. They have an opinion and they articulately share it. Growing up in a country where culture of reading was diminishing because the culture of writing had already deteriorated. These columnists were really the icons. Unfortunately, like all other noble vocations in this country, journalism has seen a decline. Plummeting quality of thought and questionable integrity of editorials due to 'inclinations' has taken away their true strength. Most of the columnists have blatantly chosen sides with political forces in the country.
For the last couple of months, newspapers have been bombarded with editorials which focus mainly on two aspects. Firstly, the biased media coverage of two dharnas which is mainly a media wrangling issue. Secondly, they speculate on the script writers of dharnas and do not stop short of blaming the hidden hand of establishment for articulation of current situation. The scribes of the articles rightly bash biased TV/ media/
anchors for shaping public opinion. Likewise, they try to prove that there is
only one villain in this country i.e. establishment and to be more precise
military establishment. Well decency warrants that we must admit, everyone has an opinion which
should be respected. Yet, we must run the issue through furnace of intellectual rigor.
Pakistan has reached where we brought it as a nation. Each one
of us and every single institution has to accept the share of blame. In editorials, our respected columnists take on only aforesaid issues, whereas, corruption in all
institutions, poor governance, absence of political acumen, foreign involvement
in our policy decisions, unconditional surrender to foreign powers’ demands and
the list goes on, does appear to them to sit at the roots of our troubles which is not different from how media dupes this nation. It is
biased and meant to serve some vested interest, as is the custom these days.
Journalistic integrity is under scrutiny for right reasons.
Current wave of political awareness among the commoners has
broken inertia of status quo. Stereotyping in politics and in other fields is a
thing of past now. Like all harbingers of status quo, it has perturbed our stereotype
intelligentsia as well. It seems that intelligentsia is singing to the same
tune as our nervous conventional political entities and other champions of
status quo. They also seem too concerned about the changing canvas of the
nation’s outlook. Select few read in this country and very few read editorials. It has
been an easy medium to share or shape the opinions of those who could read English
because they are the ones who really mattered. Things have changed. Now, every evening, most of the
writers of editorials come on air and share their opinions with public. People
can clearly see the bias, inclination, changing tone and tenure and
vulnerabilities of these opinion makers. Typical status of Holy Cow to concerti
of cognoscenti is no more. Duping public
is not that easy anymore and our intelligentsia is visibly upset about that.
Consequently, the hatred and condescendence for the forerunners of change like
Imran Khan and Tahir Ul Qadri is obvious in words and opinions of our
intelligentsia.
Well, intelligentsia has a larger role than just shunning
off the wave of change that also threatens the niche of status quo where they
have been basking for over half a century. They must step ahead and put in
their share to steer the ship of this country out of dire straits. They must
correct
those dharna parties and render valuable advice to govt and establishment
to mend their ways and apply corrections to their adopted strategies. Whether
someone pays heed to it or not, journalistic responsibility warrants that thinking
minds of opinion makers must continue the good work. They must not choose sides.
It should not appear from their writings that they are on payroll of any stakeholder
in the power matrix of this country. The nobility of this profession must not be tarnished.
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