The attacks that began on Wednesday,
November 14 with Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza strip and retaliatory
strikes on Tel Aviv from Gaza have claimed nearly 40 lives on both sides
of the border.
While the issue has not made page one
for most publications in the local press, the debate over the ongoing
violence has occupied a front and center position for Pakistanis on
social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, who criticized the local
press for its lack of interest or concern.
The coverage by the broadcast media has been even more limited.
Monitoring Friday, November 16 and
Saturday, November 17 newspaper editions of four national English
newspapers in the country – including Dawn, The Express Tribune, The Nation and The News and three leading Urdu dailies including Jang, Nawa-i-Waqt and Roznama Express – reveals how much editorial significance was allotted to the story.
English Dailies
DAWN
DAWN ran a news story and an
analysis featured on the international pages (Pages 12 &13) on
Friday and one story on the back page (Page 14) on Saturday.
The Express Tribune
The Express Tribune ran one
news story featured on the regional page (Page 8) on Friday and one
story each on the front and regional page (Page 8) along with an
editorial in the Opinion pages on Saturday.
The Nation
The Nation ran four stories on
the issue. These included one news story (Page 8) and a news analysis
(Page 9) on the foreign pages, one news report on the Back page (Page
12) and one small news item on the Business Page (Page 16) that
discusses the impact of the Gaza attack on oil prices.
It also ran five stories on Saturday including 3 news stories and 2 analysis pieces.
The News
The NEWS ran one news story on the National Pages (Page 8) and another on its World News Page (Page 11).On Saturday, it ran 3 news stories along with an opinion piece.
Urdu Dailies
Jang
Roznama Jang ran one news story on Page 3 on both days.
Roznama Express
Roznama Express also ran one news story on its National/International Pages (Page 3) and 4 news stories on Friday
Nawai-e-Waqt
Nawai-e-Waqt ran the news story on its front page on both days along with 2 news stories on Saturday.
While almost every foreign publication
has been covering the situation in Gaza extensively, none of the English
and Urdu daily newspapers in Pakistan ran more than one or two stories on the attack for the first two days, with the exception of The Nation.
The coverage improved marginally on Saturday once violence in Gaza escalated even further.
The gap in coverage of international
issues by the Pakistani media is not a new one. The same trend has been
observed in the coverage of the on-going violence in Syria that has
claimed over 40,000 lives till date.
A large hue and cry was also raised on
social media over the abysmal coverage of the persecution of Rohingya
Muslims in Myanmar by the local media, earlier in the year.
According to Ejaz Haider, a senior
columnist, the lack in coverage can be attributed to shoestring budgets
that most publications in Pakistan operate on and an over all lack of
expertise when it comes to reporting on complicated regions like the
Middle East.
“Forget faraway lands, we don’t even
cover India properly,” says Haider. On the other hand, the coverage of
Pakistan in Indian newspapers is much more in-depth and comprehensive,
he added.
Senior columnist and academic Rasul Baksh Rais shared the same opinion.
According to Rais, the vacuum in
coverage of international events by the Pakistani media – electronic
media in particular – reflects a lack of integrity, professionalism and
training by media organizations.
With respect to the Gaza attacks in
particular, Rais stated that it is a major news story in terms of peace
in the Middle East and human suffering but the Pakistani media
predictably remains focused on its internal issues such as policing
political actions and parties.
While problems within Pakistan are innumerable and complicated, it does not justify obliviousness to the outside world.
“If we stop the navel-gazing and
constantly talking about our own problems, we might realize that our
situation is not as bad as we think it is,” says Haider.
He further added that one of the reasons
for the under-reporting of the Palestine-Israel conflict could be the
loss of the novelty factor.
He compared it to the coverage of the
Kashmir issue where someone reading a Pakistani newspaper might think
that things were completely normal in the region. But that remains far
from the truth.
“One of the tools use by oppressors is
to create a sense of despondency, so that even the supporters of the
cause get worn out,” he said.
For Pakistanis, social media tools like
Twitter and Facebook, rather than traditional media have been the
primary source of information about the Gaza attacks. While experts like
Haider support the use of tools like Twitter, calling it the “most
uselessly useful tool”, he also admits that it cannot be a substitute
for sound analysis.
According to Rais, the only way of
ensuring balanced, fair coverage to different kinds of stories from all
parts of the world is for media houses to stop taking shortcuts in their
profession and invest in personnel with sound reporting, writing and
research abilities and a holistic view of the world. via: Tribune
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Labels: International news
