Friday, September 21st, 2012, was marked as Ishq-e-Rasool day in Pakistan when government had announced a public holiday to show our love for the Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H) and to protest against the anti-Islam movie, independently made by an American.
TV Channels largely (rather they only) showed the protests that went violent, involving protestors doing all kind of destruction.
Almost all major TV channels were running non-stop coverage of violent protests in (less than half a dozen sites in) Peshawar, Faizabad (Rawalpindi) and PIDC (Karachi).
No doubt the violence was there, in fact 17 deaths were confirmed in addition to an estimated loss of 75 billion during the protests on a single day.
But there were many peaceful protests too. Muslims and non-Muslims from every village, town and city of Pakistan protested by forming rallies on the day against anti-Islam video. But apparently media men were too busy in showing the violence in less than a half a dozen sites and completely ignoring thousands of other rallies that concluded peacefully.
Social media had sensed this soon and being an alternate media the pictures and coverage of peaceful protests and rallies started emerging on Facebook and Twitter.
Many of you would have already seen (if not participated in) those peaceful rallies on Facebook, especially those in which tens of thousands of Pakistani Muslims offered Asar prayer before Parliament House in Islamabad and in front of US Consulate in Lahore.
TV channels were showing the violent protests only. I mean that’s okay if they had shown those protests that went violent – but only showing non-stop violence with no mention of peaceful rallies at all?
I believe the conventional media (also dubbed as corrupt media) either forgot that there is a social media to keep a watch or they were so heavily funded that they had no other option but to show deaf ears to peaceful protests.
This coverage, that showed half picture by portraying Pakistani Muslims as violent, has already made an impression on west, which is headlining the day as deadly, violent and non-acceptable. For example, BBC has reported following in one of its stories:
Friday’s violence occurred in cities throughout Pakistan, with Karachi and Peshawar among the worst hit.
Before I ask you about your thoughts for the coverage, I was wondering if there was any hidden agenda involved in showing violent protests only? Was this coverage funded? Or this was just the un-intentional mistake of media for earning ratings and TRPs?
Just to let you know, US authorities confirmed that at least $70,000 were given to Pakistani TV channels for showing pro-American ADs.
We are embedding a poll here with an option to comment below on the topic:
Also watch below video, which won’t be shown by your TV channels:
I think few channels were biased. I was watching a channel during last few weeks. That channel was not giving much coverage to this issue but on this day they were busy all day in covering just violence. That channels is pretty much famous in Pakistan and it gives wild coverage to those issues which (somehow) goes in favor of west.
Our media has always depicted our country as bad as possible, just for the sake of earning money by playing with the emotions of our people. Their freedom license should be revoked.
TRP & External Funding Both
What happened to our feed. It is showing 0 listeners ?
AAMIR….you inbred loser….were the killings fake?….no they were REAL truth is our so called “peaceful nation” has become used to voilence…they dont accept their mistakes…anyone who shows them a mirror is either “kafir” or “yahoodi agent”…shame on you …pathetic creature….!!!!! media was showing the TRUE FACE OF OUR NATION….irony is…’the most corrupt nation is the biggest ashiq-e-rasool’ ……you guys make me laugh
I have mentioned the violence, death count and loss, which was well covered by media… but not a single minute coverage of peaceful rallies?
Does it make sense to you?
Although your point was good and I totally agree with it but it lost its meaning when you used foul language. Everybody has a different point of view and intolerance places us in the same shoes as those who burned Pakistan in the name of Islam and those who support these violent protests.
Rumi said: Raise your words not your voice.
Media showed what Pakistanis did in the name of Islam. Majority of Pakistanis are fanatics and there is no doubt about that. Pakistan was not like this in 60’s.
I hope we follow Turkey’s example and become a liberal and modern muslim state and not a MULLAH state which calls everyone kafir, persecutes its minorities and where everyone is a hypocrity afraid to see in the mirror.
This message was directed at TRUTH
you make me laugh :p
MR what ever your name if i say very bad words to your mother or father what was your reaction? setting on home & make facebook post? hahaha
but if you show your protest on road it’s help world that we Pakistani muslims not like it, and about who did the violence on ground it’s not with protesteez there is several example where pplz comes from unknown locations and start violences in peaceful rallies :)
pplz like you extremist liberal feel very sorrow when any thing about islam
you are part of this nation and also part of this Uma’h if you feel any embarrassment as a part of this nation or Umat tell us not a big deal
in this protest there is planed to make violence for showing bad image bcz in last few month pakistani pplz come closer to islamic idealizations and build soft corner for islamic parties (just my thought)
Dear Mr Truth!
People like your can just scroll FB page & nothing much you can do. The big you can do in this protest is sharing few pictures on fb & keep on posting your comments! Basically, & unfortunately our generation is lost in adopting western trends , we have lost our own identity, where were you during the protest! were you in a really? i have seen rallies which were completely peaceful (e.g CHOR CHOWK , Peshawar Road Rawalpindi the rally was too huge , from 1122 office peerwadai mor to qasim market chowk) there were hundreds & thousands of people gathered after namaz e jummah & No body in the rally neither burnt a single police post nor broke any traffic signal, & you know what there was no media coverage, no cameraman news reporter of any channel, the news channels they all are biased , they are working on a foreign agenda. They are sold, they are the real muderers of our youth, media is the cause of frustration, humiliation they cause anarchy & panic, Western world is working through our media & unfortunately our leaders are sold too …. No further comments on leaders …..as all of us seen that that our foreign minister Hina Rabbani Kher was at party & was dancing with Henry on friday night when her own country was protesting against a Nobel cause!
In last ! you can laugh on us But i even cant laugh on You! i am ashamed as you being known as our teammate!
You are pathetic!
They showed only one side. I was all the day in islamabad and media was showing like twin cities are broken down. Most of the rallies were peaceful.
how about london riots. how much violence did western media showed?
The United States has bought time on Pakistani television stations to run a series of adverts in a bid to stem Muslim protests at an amateur anti-Islam film, a US official said Wednesday.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/440117/media-blitz-us-buys-airtime-on-pakistani-channels-to-run-ads/
external funding
Unfortunately we are faced with corrupt and third class media, unaware with the basic norms of journalism having based approach in every field.
PTA opened YOUTUBE around 9:30 pm today then closed…
The media did exactly what it was supposed to
In order to get bettee TRPS the media needs to focus on what the public wants and generally speaking werent we all expecting roits considering that those who would take there protests to streets would be led by illitrate and corrupt people who would somehow try to get a benefit out of this
So it showed exactly what we wanted to see
Btw just a thought but isnt it unislamic to block the roads or cause any other constriant in the name of islam or Prophet (pbuh) which makes me question the very idea of a day labeled as youm e ishq e nabi
You can represent your feelings, not the nations. You can’t say that whole nation was wanting riots. That’s a cruel allegation I would say.
very biased! and external funding theory can’t really be ignored.
it was fine. 17 deaths >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> whatever mother effing peaceful bullshit
it was more of a violence and riots thal anything else.
I agree there were
violence on some points but if u find %age of all rallies then it is negligible and all we know that number of enemy agencies are working against Pakistan. I personely was in one
rally and 99.9% people were peaceful if any from 0.1% try, other will stop them…. But media who run by support of multinational ad’s just showing some thing different, and it look that media is promoting some agenda ….
This is nice and realistic poll. It will very effective if the results are propogated thru the social media to let those tv media know how people think about them.
the traditional media in Pakistan is all about earning ratings and TRPs. all the news channels only focus on showing the violent stuff instead of showing both sides of a story. unfortunately Pakistan has a high number of people who only rely on news channels for news rather then using the social media to find out individual opinions. there are CCTV coverage being run on the news channels showing the the violent side of the protest, but what about the other half that wasn’t voilent? None of the news channels showed that. Damn this tv traditional pathetic uneducated media !
media means two things to tell lie and to put blame without knowing the truth. This media is not representing true muslim culture. Well of course, media is haram in islam so how can it show you good and positive things.
I 100% agree with the author and the coverage was very much baised. They are always showing gloomy picture of Pakistan and spreading disappointment. I think we should file a petition that all media accounts should be audited to find their source. I visited lots of country and law and order situation is worst then Karachi but you not heard any news in their media
.
Its not Pakistani media, its seems Indian to me……………….and may be Israeli .
I dont think there was any funding involved. It’s time we start owning our acts and stop blaming “hidden/foriegn hands”. I fully agree that the media didnt act maturely – as the very fine survey of ProPakistani aptly shows. Since the message was intended for people of the world, it pathetically got lost.
But then whatever the media did, it did as the media all over the world does. Remember, for them: ‘Good News is no News!’ Last year I was in UK when the rioting took place and the media showed all of it (of course there were no peaceful protests that it ignored). But you know what the Police later did? They identified every arsonist (they are always a few) from the videos and brought him/her to justice. This is what our Police/Agencies should be doing with the media coverage now!
There were very few protest that turned violent. I was part of a peaceful protest that consists of almost 5-6K people. We protested for almost 2 hours peacefully near the press club in Garhi Shahu, Lahore but there wasn’t a single journalist to cover the event. But when only few protesters turned violent, there were correspondents of almost all TV channels. Show the professionalism of them!
yes there is hundred of thousands of people who protess peacefully but our media didnt gave him coverage which shows the baised attitude of our media
totally neutral and excellent reporting,media didnt show anything that was staged or spooky,it was something that was happening there on those very streets.Its about time we stop blaming media and start ractifying ourselves for duin such stupid things.
If you happen to watch closesly,most of those people looked like teenage kids who were enjoyin destroying others property.Shame on them …….
jitne lo wahan sarkon pe thay,ius se adhey agar masjid mein jama ho jaein kisi din tou i am sure nobody can defeat us.!
There’s no chance of prevailing until we have people like you amongst us, who consider such senseless reporting as unbiased
Media walay bikay huway hai sub choor hai yha…
wow nice video aur aksar larkio nay dupatta bhi orda howa tha.
coz all tv channels doing Business they do everything for Rating and TRP