Media: need for code of ethics
By: S. M. SHAHID
IT was shocking to watch a programme on a private TV channel titled ‘Baat se baat’. A young girl, who looked like a teenager, was going round in what appeared to be a kutchi abadi, with a microphone in her hand and two police constables following her.
She had raided the kutchi abadi where people were using ‘kunda’ to steal electricity. Although only a host of the above programme, she was behaving like a hardcore interrogator threatening illiterate inhabitants of dire consequences.
She was even shouting orders at the two confused constables asking them to arrest ‘kunda’ users and threatening that ‘we’ would round up all. What was most painful, as she raided various houses, was that small children with harassed faces watched the ‘frightening’ drama with their mothers and other members of the family.
The TV reporter had even linemen and some minor officials of the administration who were blaming a ‘qabza group’ which invites some politician named Khokhar and organises his gatherings in the area. They claimed that the power theft was taking place under the politician’s patronage.
As a viewer, who has enough tension on his platter, watching shouting matches between anchors and politicians every evening, I should be spared this kind of unbecoming behaviour by self-trained TV reporters.
We all know that it is the people at the helm of affairs who are responsible for the mess. When they are brought to justice, everything will be fine.
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