How to read a newspaper
By: Masud Alam
Congratulations. You are among the very few Pakistanis — less than one per cent of the population — who read newspapers. And if you are a woman, you are among the 0.001 per cent.
You read newspapers for the same reason the newspapers are published for. The age-old objective of journalism is defined as: to inform, to educate, to entertain, and to keep record. So, having devoured the morning paper for years and years, are you informed, educated and entertained? Or do you feel more confused, angry and depressed?
Perhaps both. There are days when a piece of writing fills you with positive energy and inspires you to see failures all around you as juicy challenges. And there are days when you toss away the paper in disgust at all the negative emotions and feelings it triggers within you and makes you start your day with pessimism and an overbearing sense of resignation towards everything around you. I’ll venture a guess here: the latter happens more often than the former.
And more often than the two extremes, the newspaper reading experience does nothing to you, except leaving a stale and sour taste in your mouth, that you wash down with a sugar-laden mug of tea and get on with your day.
It’s all your fault.
Journalism is like politics, in that both claim to speak for, and thrive on the trust of, common people like you. If you are actively involved, your concerns and aspirations are reflected in politics and journalism of your land. When you become passive or indifferent, the politicians and journalists become directionless and lazy. They start pushing their own agenda which gives you more reasons to distance yourself from them. This disconnect keeps growing in direct proportion to the mistrust between people and those representing them, until the point where all politicians are thieves and all journalists are blackmailers in the common perception. That is where we stand today.
Let’s try to understand how we got here. Officially, half of Pakistan’s population is literate. Since we don’t believe anything official, let’s say a quarter of the population can read and write Urdu, English or their mother tongue. That leaves us with five crore or 50 million potential readers. And the thousands of newspapers published in the length and breadth of this country, put together, can’t even sell one million copies. We must conclude that a vast majority does not care what the newspapers (and for that matter, magazines, books … printed words in any form) say or don’t say.
Those few who do read — that’s you — are largely passive readers. You don’t make any demands, you don’t assess and challenge the material dished out to you, you are not offended if there are grave errors in facts and figures or glaring contradictions on the same page. The newspaper carries a story titled: ‘We believe in politics of consensus’ for the thousandth time, and you read it dutifully. Ditto with the stories: ‘The government has failed’, ‘ABC should quit politics’, ‘My party will win next elections’ … Meaningless statements, mindlessly repeated ad nauseam make up the bulk of every newspaper, and it does not bother you.
Newspapers claim to speak for you, and to you. Do they? How many stories do you find on any day that have relevance to your life? How many analyses are written with you in the writer’s mind? How many of ‘your’ concerns are addressed? And if your paper does not speak to and for you, do you make an effort to reach the editors and give them a piece of your mind? You don’t. You passively take what’s given to you, and if you don’t like it, you complain about it in private. You do nothing to change it.
You do make a choice in terms of which paper to buy, but that choice is based on considerations other than quality of reporting and writing. You patronise a paper because of the ‘ideology’ it stands for, or because of its political bias, or its ‘liberal voice’ or whatever hocus pocus they sell you.
And that’s where journalism is different from politics. Both are accountable before you but unlike politics, the product of journalism comes out in black and white, and you pay money to buy it. Also, unlike politicians, journalists and editors are easier to access and influence. As a paying consumer of news, you are the boss. And, therefore, if the news business is a mess, it’s of your making too.
Take responsibility for it if you want to see it fixed.
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