The Rise of Tele-evangelism
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, IN
Not all, but most of us hanker for shortcuts in every aspect of our lives. Shortcuts hold the key to our progress; they guide us to be prosperous and help us seize both fame and prestige in the shortest period of time and with the minimum possible effort. Unfortunately, the temptation to be rich by hook or by crook has become so powerful that the illegality of the road to our success does not pester us anymore; its immorality does not bother us and its wickedness does not disturb us either. Our audacity to be affluent is unquestionable and moral codes do not apply to our fervor at all.
Similarly, our inclination for shortcuts manifests itself in our national conduct as well. As a result, we rely upon martial laws and accept authoritarian regimes for the accountability of our politicians, instead of following the tough and long course of democracy. We do not endeavor to filter them out through the constitutional and electoral process; we do not even compel them to actively legislate and act vigorously against corruption; instead, we just wish them to disappear with the magic stick of a dictator. The same is true in sports, where we believe in ball tampering or even ball chewing to win an ordinary match, instead of the hardcore organization of cricket at grassroots level throughout the country. Similarly, on television we encourage fake and fixed ‘wrestling’ programs’, aka political talk shows to boost our ratings; instead of presenting educative, objective and interesting programs.
Our ardor for shortcuts culminated in the form of tele-evangelism five years ago when the restoration of judges and democracy had engulfed the whole political discourse of Pakistan. Generally, it was a tumultuous year for all of us, but for the electronic media it was payday to milk money from their black cameras. They were cashing out sentiments of people day in and day out; they were running long political commentaries during the ‘judicial movement’ and were successfully attracting advertisers. All of us were glued to our television sets, waiting anxiously for the updates and breaking news. Multiple commercials were being played during the evening telecasts and tens of millions of rupees poured in. Additionally, private new channels were successfully hatching heroes in the form of television anchors every fortnight, with their evening news talk shows. In these programs, people with dubious credentials and questionable credibility were presented as legends who claimed to have endangered their lives for the freedom of expression in their careers, even when they were cajoling the ‘usurper’ just six months ago and their sycophantic behavior was an open secret.
It was the easiest shortcut of all times, a ‘tsunami’ of television heroes. They emerged one after another to contribute in the fight for justice. They built the rhetoric, they played with the emotions and elevated the expectations of the people. Unintentionally in this process of building hope and wining the hearts and minds of the people, they entered into a frivolous programs rating competition amongst them. In the beginning, their rivalries were concealed under the cover of the judicial movement, but these rivalries became clear after the judges were restored in the spring of 2009. Once the Chief Justice resumed his position, the basic defect in the quality of these programs began to emerge. The producers, the anchorpersons and the media tycoons then realized their unpreparedness to conduct a good quality broadcast every night. They found out that they were neither qualified enough, nor were talented enough to take on the daunting task of conducting a serious and well researched program four to five times a week. Not contemplating the gravity of the challenge they were facing, they came up with a naïve and simple solution to the problem: a vigorous and constant promotion of sensationalism in the talk shows to keep the viewers interested in their broadcasts.
Consequently, over the last three years, we have noticed a steady yet certain decline in the quality of these shows. Not that they were great to begin with, now their standard dropping further across the board continues to get worse. In the first phase of their dwindling popularity, the anchors invited two or three guests in their shows and incited them to argue with each other and if they refused to take the ‘bait’, the anchor would initiate an argument with one of the guests himself. This strategy lasted for a while and stretched the interest of the viewers for almost a year. It unearthed the eloquence of Dr Ashiq Awan when she targeted another member of the National Assembly on a very personal level. This phase was followed by the live telecast of the feud between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The obstinacy to show those conversations over and over again was a true expression of our ‘freedom of speech’ as well as our ‘independence’ from any moral code, ethical values or professional conduct.
In the most recent phase, a politician who is on a ‘suicide’ mission is repeatedly invited on the programs. Under the cloak of being impartial and representing both sides, amazingly offensive, rude and indecent language is promoted by almost every renowned news channel without any remorse. So far, people have clung to these programs and the ratings are high but it cannot last very long. Eventually, as dramatic as these programs sound and as big a crowd as these programs manage to pull, they would hurt the long-term interests of the institution and would invariably draw people away from the obscenity of these shows.
(The writer is a US-based freelance columnist and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com )
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