Lessons from Maya Khan

I thought about simply updating the previous post but decided that this deserved a separate entry.

So, after much pressure from social media, activists, oped writers and blogs as well as the odd well-deserved editorial in mainstream papers, it seems the message did finally get through to Samaa TV's management. Maya Khan and her team have been fired by Samaa and her programme stopped. The following is the letter from Samaa CEO Zafar Siddiqi which was shared with the media:

Dear All
Your feedback is appreciated. As a responsible corporate citizen, Samaa TV did what was required under the circumstances. We do not and have not in the past or intend to in the future to take our viewership or reporting requirements without the seriousness that they deserve. 

You would appreciate that as an organisation with a functioning management team, we had to conduct certain legal requirements over the past week and internal review processes (which are operational in nature) before procedding further. 

As a result of which I can inform you: 

We asked Maya to apologise unconditionally which she did not.
The CEO asked her to do that on Friday which she refused. 

As a result of which the following will be put in place on Monday, Jan 30th: 

Maya and her team will receive termination notices.
Her show is being stopped from Monday morning. 

Our deeds and actions taken since this episode occured are there for the record and hope this will settle issues as far as the station is concerned. 

A lot has been written about the race for ratings. Well, we do [not] absolve such behaviour irrespective of ratings that the show was getting. 

With best regards and thank you for your understanding. 

Zafar Siddiqi
Chairman CNBC Arabiya
Chairman CNBC Africa
President CNBC Pakistan

There are a couple of things to gather from this unfortunate episode:

1. Social pressure works! While Mr Siddiqi must be fully appreciated for being willing to listen to and understand the voices of outrage and for taking swift action, none of this would have been possible without the pressure that built up over the issue. What made the pressure effective was the multi-pronged strategy which involved not just raising the issue with PEMRA, but also writing directly to the Samaa TV management, the petitions and threats of protest as well as the momentum that organizing a consensus provided via Twitter and Facebook and various oped pieces in mainstream papers. It was this momentum that forced the mainstream to raise the issue even in editorials. Let no one doubt the power of a group of people to change things.

2. The importance of thoughtful media management. Even as Samaa quickly issued a clear apology once the matter achieved notoriety, the issue might have been 'handled' with less drastic results had Ms Maya Khan not issued a half-hearted mea culpa (while grinning) at the same time which only made people question Samaa's seemingly sincere apology. On top of it all, her programme's producer, one Sohail Zaidi, was quoted by the BBC defiantly stating that he was "not responsible to anyone but himself." Ms Khan and Mr Zaidi ended up being responsible for making their own cases worse.

3. The importance of perspective and proportion. Some activists and social media types did get carried away in their anger. To be sure, Maya Khan and her unashamed cohorts did infringe on other peoples' privacy and harrass them. But posting details and pictures of Maya Khan's personal life or the personal cell phone numbers of Samaa TV management on public forums was certainly not the way to go. Thankfully, there were calmer heads within activists who immediately called out their fellow activists on the irony of responding to someone's egregious actions by acting in the same coin.

4. Need for ongoing media monitoring. One of the main reasons this blog was set up was because we felt the need for such monitoring at a time when media was booming in Pakistan and there were precious few willing to raise a voice against well-funded media houses. Obviously, however, we neither have the resources to monitor all of the media nor any official mandate to take action on issues we come across. All we can do is play a part in publicising issues as we see them. But what is really needed is for an independent body - hopefully comprising of civil society experts in the media - to oversee public complaints. PEMRA has the official authority to take action but is often criticised variously for being either overly bureaucratic, under the government's thumb (and thus partial), or too beholden to the large corporate media houses. It would be in PEMRA's interests to help set up an independent body, along the lines of the UK's Offcom, to help it monitor content and handle public complaints. This would not only reduce pressure on PEMRA but provide its decisions with the stamp of fairness and consensus it needs.

Hopefully, some of these lessons will be learnt.

Samaa Stoops to New Lows

What a fucking waste of a Sunday. Here I was minding my own business, trying to do some work, relax a little bit, surf the net and... I ended up watching 15 minutes of some five-day old desperate-for-ratings morning show on Samaa TV, hosted by an even more desperate-for-recognition C-grade actor called Maya Khan. I usually steer clear of vapid morning programming on all channels but I watched because so many people were feeling so outraged by what had gone on in the programme that I thought I might as well check.

And guess what? Everyone who was outraged by this show is perfectly right to be outraged. I am outraged. No, actually, outrage seems a small term for what I felt while watching the shenanigans of this miserable cow Maya Khan and her motley crew of rich Defence-type airheads and gossipy burqa-clad crusaders. I felt physically nauseous. This was a new low in sensationalist television crap.




Here were a bunch of television vigilantes serving as the television arm of the Jamia Hafsa crusaders in Islamabad, the cretinous sisters of the Taliban's moral police Amar bil Maaroof, nonsensically claiming to have a "picnic" in a park while harassing poor couples whose only crime seems to be exercising their right to privacy and consensually talking to a member of the opposite sex. (Note that NONE of the couples harassed by this bunch of airhead crusaders were indulging in any act of public indecency as claimed by one man towards the end of the clip.) This is total and utter bullshit. Not only does Samaa TV's goon squad invade the privacy of people, it blatantly ignores the consequences of putting these poor people's faces on air (who knows or cares what their domestic circumstances are) and lies to them about having their mikes and cameras switched off. This is unethical behaviour beyond all limits.

But there is a bigger social issue that the likes of Maya Khan and her rabid cohorts will never understand: the rapidly diminishing public space for the less affluent sections of society. The rich have a thousand options, proverbially speaking. Where are couples who cannot afford upmarket restaurants or have access to private house parties supposed to go to just sit and talk if not places such as parks or by the sea? And the addle-headed cow who argues about unmarried couples not being allowed to see each other? Who let her out of her house to go to a salon and get on television in the first place?

Is this what we have come to with the 'freedom' of the media? A blind rush for ratings at the expense of any civic, social or even common sense? Here is a wonderful Open Letter to Maya Khan from a far more restrained Mehreen Kasana. And there is also a petition that you can sign addressed to Samaa TV CEO Zafar Siddiqui, which I would urge you all to sign. Some people have also initiated letters to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) asking it to take notice of this content.

However, I think this is far too little for the likes of Maya Khan and her mongrels. This kind of socially destructive vigilantism should be nipped in the bud and taken note of by the government itself. The entire crew and aunty brigade should all be charged, perhaps for taking the law into their hands, for invasion of privacy and also for sexual harrassment. A message should be sent out to ratings-hungry television channels that there are limits to what they can do.

Incidentally, it may be recalled that Samaa has caused serious damage before. Thankfully, it had sacked Meher Bokhari after her sensationalist comments about Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer helped create the atmosphere that led to his assassination. One had hoped it had learnt its lesson. It looks like it needs a sharp reminder.

A Problematic Appeal

* * * * * * * * * * * *
CLARIFICATION: We posted the following in good faith but seem to have misconstrued some of the facts. It has been brought to our attention, particularly by our friend Shahid Saeed, that the letter addressed to PEMRA's Council of Complaints has not, in fact, been submitted yet and was circulated to gather input from others, and as such is a draft internal document. Saeed feels it may have been unethical of us to lay the document open to critique by people who are not part of the process and we think he may have a very valid point. In addition, the conversation with Zafar Siddiqui referred to below occurred after the Lahore chapter of the CFD filed an earlier complaint with PEMRA against Samaa, not after this letter was submitted. Unfortunately, it would probably also be unethical of us to remove this post altogether now that it has already become public domain. But we would like of offer our sincerest apologies to the CFD for this inadvertent publicization of their draft internal document.
* * * * * * * * * * * *

The Citizens For Democracy (CFD), a loose "Pakistan-wide coalition of civil society, labour, student and religious organizations" as well as "intellectuals, academics and professionals" has sent is considering sending the following complaint to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA)'s Council of Complaints against the hiring of Meher Bokhari by Dunya TV after she was sacked from Samaa TV:

"The Chairperson

Council of Complaints, Islamabad

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Headquarters

G-8/1, Mauve Area

Islamabad

Subject: Complaint against the recent hiring of Mehar Bukhari by Duniya channel

Dear Chairperson,

We, Citizens for Democracy (“CFD”), are a Pakistan-wide coalition of civil society, labour student and religious organizations, intellectuals, academics and professionals with branches in Karachi, Hyderabad, Quetta, Lahore and Islamabad.  CFD believes that the primary obligation of the State is to protect the lives and property of citizens and that no person or group of people should be permitted to hold the State and the people of Pakistan hostage through the threat or use of force.  A list of some of the organizations that form CFD is attached.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (“PEMRA”) was established by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Ordinance, 2002 (the “PEMRA Ordinance”), inter alia, to “improve the standards of information, education and entertainment” in Pakistan.  Section 20(c) of the PEMRA Ordinance requires all PEMRA licencees authorized to broadcast electronic media to “ensure that all programs and advertisements do not contain violence, terrorism, ethnic or religious discrimination, sectarianism, extremism, militancy, hatred, pornography, obscenity, vulgarity or other material offensive to commonly accepted standards of decency” and to comply with any rules made under the PEMRA Ordinance.

Rule 15 of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Rules, 2009 (the “PEMRA Rules”) requires that the content of the programs which are broadcast by the broadcast media shall conform to the provisions of Section 20 of the PEMRA Ordinance and to the Code of Conduct set out in Schedule A thereof.  The Code of Conduct is set out below:

Programmes:-

(1) No programme shall be aired which:

(a)      Passes derogatory remarks about any religion or sect or community or uses visuals or words contemptuous of religious sects and ethnic groups or which promotes communal and sectarian attitudes or disharmony;

(b)      contains anything pornographic, obscene or indecent or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality;

(c)      contains an abusive comment that, when taken in context, tends to or is likely to expose an individual or a group or class of individuals to hatred or contempt on the basis of race or caste, national, ethnic or linguistic origin, colour or religion or sect, sex, sexual orientation, age or mental or physical disability;

(d)     contains anything defamatory or knowingly false;

(e)      is likely to encourage and incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national or anti-state attitudes;

(f)       contains anything amounting to contempt of court;

(g)      contains aspersions against the Judiciary and integrity of the Armed Forces of Pakistan;

(h)      maligns or slanders any individual in person or certain groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country

(i)        is against basic cultural values, morality and good manners;

(j)        brings into contempt Pakistan or its people or tends to undermine its integrity or solidarity as an independent and sovereign country;

(k)      promotes, aids or abets any offence which is cognizable under the Pakistan Penal Code;

(l)        denigrates men or women through the depiction in any manner of the figure, in such a way as to have the effect of being indecent or derogatory;

(m)    denigrates children;

(n)      contains anything which tends to glorify crime or criminals;

(o)      contains material which may be detrimental to Pakistan’s relations with friendly countries; or

(p)      contains material which is against ideology of Pakistan or Islamic values.

(Emphasis added)

CFD demands that irresponsible journalists like Mehar Bukhari should not be allowed on air as they have a strong tendency to incite violence and promote a culture of hatred.  We are attaching with this mail  a link to two clips from Mehar Bukhari’s show on Samaa TV where she interviewed the late Governor Salman Taseer on the 25th of November 2010. Her demeanor and language was extraordinarily inflammatory and provocative and we believe that this broadcast was also partially responsible for the assassination.

http://pakteahouse.net/2011/01/11/meher-bukhari-has-salman-taseers-blood-on-her-hands-as-well/

The above cited Broadcast violates the Code of Conduct and is a violation of the PEMRA Rules and Ordinance in that the presenter of the Show, Ms. Mehr Bokhari, conducted an interview with Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer on the issue of the Blasphemy Laws in which she (i) insisted that the Governor’s life was in danger for having inflamed the public’s religious passions, (ii) read out a Fatwa that declared the Governor Punjab a non-Muslim as a result of his pursuing a mercy petition on behalf of a Christian woman convicted of charges of blasphemy and, specifically, the following portion of the Fatwa: “that Munafiq and a Murtid cannot hold high office in this country.”  Ms. Bokhari insisted the Fatwa she read out had force.  This edition of News Beat was subsequently re-broadcast immediately after the assassination of Governor Salmaan Taseer.  The provisions of the Code of Conduct violated by the Impugned Broadcast have been emphasized above.

Ms Bukhari demonstrated that she is not responsible journalist or human being when she intentionally misinterpreted Goveernor Taseer’s marks about the blasphemy law. Our media personalities and anchor need to reminded of their social duties so that they do not blindly run ther shows in orderto score more points by gaining cheap attention. Mehar Bukhari should have to pay a penalty for her deplorable attitude and we recommend that she be banned from any news channel for at least a period of three years.

With best regards.

Very truly yours,

On behalf of CFD

Attachment:

-            List of organizations forming CFD

Copies to:

-  Chairman

PEMRA

G-8/1, Mauve Area

Islamabad

- Chairperson

Council of Complaints, Lahore

House No. 25, Abid Majeed Road

Bridge Colony

Lahore

- Mr. Qamar Zaman Kaira

Minister for Information and Broadcasting

Ministry of Information, Government of Pakistan

Islamabad

- Jaag Productions (Private) Limited

Technocity Corporate Towers

off I.I. Chundrigar Road,

Karachi 74000"

Personally, while we support CFD's aims of putting all such media personalities on notice that they cannot simply get away with spewing all sorts of irresponsible nonsense on television and even building pressure on PEMRA to do the job it has been tasked with, we're not so sure that singling out Ms. Bokhari for such stark punitive action is entirely appropriate. After all, the ultimate responsibility for such broadcasts must rest with the channel owners and their editorial heads, rather than simply with their public faces. In fact, PEMRA's earlier action of fining Samaa rightly focused on the channel rather than the presenter. Asking for a three year ban on any one particular person also seems particularly excessive especially given that there are far worse offenders on Pakistani screens (who should also be taken to task) and that the rest of those responsible for even these particular broadcasts escape any kind of censure by CFD.

Meher Bokhari: basking in notoriety (Source: GT Magazine)

Interestingly, one of the CFD members, Mahbina Wahid, also circulated an email to the group pointing out that after this an earlier complaint was filed with PEMRA against Samaa TV, Samaa TV owner Zafar Siddiqui himself called her. She wrote:

"He informed me that he had already sacked Meher Bokhari and her entire production team last week after seeing CDs of her show that were sent to him. He also said that he personally was very upset that it was his channel that had broadcast such a show. He lives in Dubai and is not involved in the day to day management of the channel, hence he was not aware of this show when it happened. He has also now ensured that certain other sensationalised items in Pakistan are not covered by his channel."

So at least we have clarity about the circumstances of Ms. Bokhari's departure from Samaa. If anything, CFD's ire should be focused more towards Dunya's unseemly haste and taste in signing on and relaunching Ms. Bokhari as a 'brave and fearless' "Pakistan's most dangerous journalist", as anyone who has seen their latest promos can attest.

The Hypocrisy Stakes

For those of you who (rightfully) never tire of running Geo / ARY down for their positions at the head of a particularly irrational class of reactionary sensationalist media, watch out. There's a new contender in town vying for the crown. And its name is Samaa.

If that looks a bit unsettling, so is the channel now

Do you know what the top headline for the channel's news was for hours this evening - at least all the way from the 9 o' clock news until the last time I checked? Not the floods, not the latest drone attack, not the ongoing government-supreme court tussle, not the alleged terrorist plot in Europe supposedly traced to Pakistan, not the dire status of the economy, not the New York Times reports of military displeasure with the government, not the seeming ideological about-turn of the MQM and its implications for the coalition government. No, it was a story about a debate within the Sindh Assembly about alcohol.

Okay, so one can legitimately question whether the Sindh Assembly should be discussing the merits of the alcohol ban in Pakistan at this point in time when myriad far greater problems confront the country and the province. And apparently the assembly members did spend a bit of time discussing the merits of foreign versus local booze in a light-hearted manner. But the TOP story???

And what a story it was! Replete with snarky audio clips of film music about addictive "sharaab" [alcohol] and double entendre narration (example: "Iss se pehlay ke arakeen behek jaatay aur shaam dhalak jaati..." [Before the members could be led astray and the evening spilled over...]), the report steadfastly ignored the fact that the debate actually began over a parliamentarian pointing out the damage that illegal (and dangerous) moonshine often inflicts on citizens. Perfectly legitimately, the member questioned the hypocrisy of a system in which the elite can get foreign booze in restaurants, clubs and 5-star hotels and are never prosecuted for their open consumption but the poor are hauled off to jails for possession of even small amounts of liquor and suffer far more than that in terms of health. This is an extremely valid argument and goes right to the heart of the class hypocrisy that makes up the rotten state of affairs in Pakistan. And before any of you get self-righteously religious on me, keep in mind that the debate was not specifically about Muslims and that there is a sizable population of non-Muslims in Sindh as well who are affected by the same double-standards. Not that I think the state should be interfering in individual Muslims' personal choices either.

But of course Samaa and its reporter were having none of that. All they were interested in was in sensationalizing the fact that a debate about alcohol was even happening in the Sindh Assembly at all. (And, aside from the issue of the timing of it, why should it not?) And by implication, scandalizing those who were taking part as imbibers and drunkards. It was all akin to fifth-graders snickering over the mention of the word 'sex'. (I can't find the report yet on Youtube but will upload it once / if it does come online.)

To further inflame the passions of its viewers, the channel took on the phone former minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi to express his "sorrow" over the debate and to berate it as not only "haraam" (forbidden) but "against the constitution." So, now even debating an issue of social relevance and health can be unconstitutional and un-Islamic. (Incidentally, what the hell happened to Sher Afgan? Recall that the man, before becoming General Musharraf's parliamentary spokesperson, was once considered a liberal PPP stalwart as well.)

Of course this is the same Samaa, whose anchor Meher Bokhari conducted an incendiary (and severely ill-informed) programme at the height of the Florida-based Quran-burning provocation, with nary a thought to the kind of uncontrollable passions it could give rise to. (To give you an idea of what that programme was like, it had on air, among others, whacko conspiracy theorist Shireen Mazari and the head of the Sipahe Sahaba Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi as 'expert' commentators and even broadcast pictures of some nutcase burning a Quran in New York.) Obviously the channel has decided to unceremoniously dump its much-touted erstwhile slogan decrying sensationalism ("Sansani Nahin, Siraf Khabar" [No Sensationalism, Only News]).

Now, we have always maintained that a person's lifestyle choices are their own and should not be a topic of public gossip. (Recall that we defended Bokhari and others when a right-wing website made salacious claims about their private conduct.) But I also think it is legitimate to discuss them when that person himself or herself make them an issue for others, particularly hypocritically. And it's about time that someone put an end to these kinds of blatant double standards. So, I suppose it would be perfectly reasonable to point out that Samaa TV's owner, Zafar Siddiqui, rather likes his Scotch (and this is no mere hearsay). The duplicity of a channel with a whiskey-swilling owner holding others to the fire for even discussing alcohol is just a bit too much to bear.

Samaa's owner and Mr Walker are good friends

So, how do you like them apples, Mr Siddiqui?

The Samaa of Another Bubble Bursting

So, apparently, the latest victim of the bursting media bubble is Samaa TV, which today sacked some half a dozen people, and rumours are rife within the channel that more pink slips are about to come. Ironically, many of those laid off today were refugees from DawnNews, i.e. they had been snapped up by Samaa when they were served their marching orders during DawnNews' scaling down spree a couple of months ago. Doesn't say much about Samaa's financial planning does it? Considering the fact that Samaa's owner, Accountant Zafar Siddiqui, has a reputation for such "spontaneous" decisions - he used to run the now defunct Telebiz before launching the CNBC franchise CNBC Pakistan and Samaa -it should hardly have come as a surprise though.

The buzz within the organization is that those who stay will also be asked to take a pay cut.

The news has followed the apparent demotion of Director News Amir Zia a few days ago. He was asked to move from Karachi to Islamabad as the Director Current Affairs. In his stead, ex-Dawn reporter Ehteshamuddin has been made the new in-charge of the News section. Meanwhile, according to reports, Server Moosavee, a director of commercials and music videos, has been annointed the new head of the channel. He was previously serving as adviser to Siddiqui. It's not clear whether former CEO Amir Jahangir has been replaced or Moosavee's position is a new one. Let's see how long that lasts.