While that media has regularly been presented as a victimized entity and the journalists being the most oppressed and pressurized in carrying out their duties fairly and accurately, there has been a slight change in this trend and public perception as was the case in the conflict between the strongest media group of Pakistan ‘Jang Group’ and the government especially the armed forces of the country backed by majority of the public. Jang Group of Pakistan is regarded to have monopolistic influence in both the print and electronic media of the country. In print media, the group owns the largest circulating daily Urdu newspaper ‘Jang’ and also the well-reputed and widely circulated ‘The News’ along with a large number of local and regional newspapers and magazines. In electronic media, the most trusted source of news in country, Geo News Network is also owned by the same group which has considerably increased its presence in recent years by expanding to so many channels of Geo like Geo News, Geo Entertainment, Geo Sports, and Geo Tez.

Hamid Mir is undoubtedly a very talented, intelligent and brave journalist whose reports from the disturbed northern areas of the country during the military operations earned him great fame and respect. His program on Geo, ‘Capital Talk’ has large viewership both inside and outside the country where his insightful observations and comments provide a lot to think for the viewers and work to mould the political ideas of the public. Hamid Mir has also been awarded with so many awards for his excellence in reporting and realistic political and social analysis in the media. Hamid Mir can be considered the true asset of Geo Television who has earned a lot of fame and public popularity for the channel. Hamid Mir is also famous for his open and straight-forward criticism of different politicians, misconduct of armed forces in tribal areas and Baluchistan, and different organs of government. It is the reason why, it has always been the desire of every politician and organs of government to have ideal relations with him and be safe from his criticism.

Before he came under a deadly attack in Karachi a few months ago in which he escaped the death and got badly injured, he had severely criticized the role of military especially the ISI in the atrocities and misconduct in Baluchistan. He had also expressed his fears of any attack on his life as he was continuously getting threats on phone for his criticism of different organs of government. In such circumstances, when he came under attack and was badly injured, the Geo television got infuriated and directly accused the military and ISI for these attacks. For this, army also broke the tape of silence and demanded the network to provide tangible evidence in this regard. A complaint was also registered with PEMRA which is the media regulatory authority of the country. Some rallies were also organized in capital city Islamabad and other cities of the country in support of armed forces and against the baseless accusations of Geo television. Although experts found out that these rallies were all fabricated and arranged with paid participants but they worked to invoke the true anger of general public against the media group.

Long ago before this incident and the resultant controversy had started, a lot of criticism was in air against the Geo television. In social media like Facebook and Twitter, a lot many anti-Geo materials were in circulation. Although Geo claims to have good viewership in youth but it was also the youth that was busy in sharing all the things against this television network. No doubt, there would definitely be some involvement of rival news channels that were unhappy of the rapid popularity and expansion of the channel but the material spread on the social websites also carried a lot of weight. According to these contents, Geo was a channel expanding and making monetary gain by promoting a culture of sensation and horror in the society. Although they were the first to give breaking news and report the suicide attacks, they had developed and promoted the culture of spreading sensation and fear in the general public to make the news more attractive. Although their programs of political and social debate and discussions had a lot of intellectual appeal and showed the hidden picture of the events but they were also held responsible for providing a platform where politicians and social figures from different groups got involved in discussion of blaming and accusations often ending in the mental and ideological divide of the viewers and masses and there was nothing to bring different people and groups together to promote national solidarity. In this way, they were definitely able to draw more viewer attention but they were also the flag-bearers of a negative and socially detrimental media trend.

The strife between the army and Geo ended in a way that Geo had to publish a public apology in its newspapers and PEMRA punished the channel by freezing its functionality for a couple of weeks and fining it with a sizeable amount of money.

Without commenting on the viewpoints of different groups involved in the above mentioned case, we express our deepest sympathy and support for Geo Network as their services for the promotion of public awareness and freedom of speech is worth-praising and being a journalist, I can realize the hardships that they go through in performing their duties. At the same time, I take this opportunity to congratulate the Afghan media for their outstanding performance in a limited time of a decade in making remarkable achievements.

But I would like to take this opportunity to direct the attention of our media to the style of electronic and print media in some of the regions of the world especially the Central Asian States. In these areas, the mode of reporting the news and describing events is less sensational and harassing. In the same way, the debates and discussions shown on television are mostly directed for the general well-being of viewers and no effort is made to increase viewership by getting into debates and discussions that should be fiery and based on the ideological and verbal strife of the participants.

No doubt, there would definitely be differences in the political and social conditions of different regions. They may be having more stable and established governments, their law and order situation may be absolutely perfect but with all these differences, a responsibility lies on the shoulders of media to work in order to comfort the people and relax their minds. In doing so, we can never ignore the importance of reporting accurately and practicing and promoting professional honesty but then this professionalism requires of the media not to create unnecessary sensation in the general public and not to exaggerate the events. The end result for the media would be to act more responsibly and try to develop taste in public that should not be based on terror and sensation rather on simple and straightforward description of events. This may not be much attractive to the media financially but a platform much respected and honored like media, everything should not be weighed on the scale of monetary gain and loss.