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‘We reported it blowing up first!’
By Talha Ahmed
Published about 14 hours ago





News channels compromised the security operation through their live feed which was giving away the security team’s location. -Photo by AP
For those of you lucky enough to have missed out on last night’s live television coverage of the attack at Jinnah International Airport, let me inform you that TV journalism died yesterday.

What else would you call the broadcast of a national tragedy – a terrorist attack of this scale – presented in the form of a summer blockbuster film?

We know now that 13 security officials and PIA employees lost their lives to this horror. They were either dead or about to die when TV channel reporters were shrieking on their microphones with added sound effects and music in the background.

In marathon live transmissions battling each other for who-can-get-their-ratings-through-the-roof-first, news channel anchors and reporters went berserk, dropping even the veneer of civility to sell any and everything they could lay their hands on, to attract viewers.

Some reporters went from one body to another shouting:

Look at this, here’s an injured security official…And look at this one, he looks like he may be dead already.

News anchors were heard half-shocked, half-gloating:

We have just shown you live footage of a dead terrorist

We’re the first to break this news!

Our reporters were the first to tell you a plane has caught fire.

As one could expect in this god forsaken country, all of this was being broadcast alongside a parental advisory note labeled ‘not safe for kids’, and a statement reading “we are not letting journalistic ethics out of hand” in our coverage of this event.

God only knows what would happen if they did let "ethics" get out of hand.

With fire and smoke billowing in the background and inhuman voices screaming on mics, the one thing that just kept going up in this blockbuster was suspense.

If reporters could have had their way, I’m pretty sure they would have loved to set up a mic on a militant and ask him about the various motives and philosophy behind this attack, along with the operational game plan and the make and model of every bullet they intended to fire.

A lot of you may have heard by now that a certain channel compromised the security operation through their live feed which was giving away the security team’s location.

No wonder DG ISPR Asim Bajwa was forced to tweet:
AsimBajwaISPR @AsimBajwaISPR
Follow

#Kci Update:Live coverage of inside airport should stop,hindering operation.Giving away position of assets/troops.Rather helping terrorists

3:15 PM - 8 Jun 2014
1,825 Retweets 793 favorites






Should we call all of this a joke? How do you even categorise this phenomenon?

IG Sindh Police seemed to have been in a similar dilemma when this happened:

Reporter: “How long will it take to wind up this operation?”

IG Sindh: “How am I supposed to answer such a ridiculous question? (Bhai ye kya ahmeqaana sawal hai?)”

A certain channel decided it was a great idea to get live updates from a passenger stuck in one of the planes.

Reporter: “Please update us on the situation around you.”

Passenger: “What can I say, I’m stuck here inside this plane just like all the other passengers. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Reporter: “Don’t worry, the terrorists will be captured soon.”

So when the reporter found the passenger couldn’t update him, he thought he might as well update the passenger instead?

Also read: Just another flight, just another night of terror

All this while, for the larger part of the nation, sitting glued to their TVs in lounges, it seemed like a bomb was going off every 10 minutes because that was the kind of picture being painted.

Quite fittingly for a people stuck in the chronic debate of whether or not the government will go for an operation against the militants, last night saw several channels in conflict over reports of whether or not the airport security operation was over. Still others mindlessly droned on and on about whether the attack constituted "a security lapse".

One wonders what the word ‘report’ even means to these "journalists". Is it required of a report to have at least one semi-credible source? Because many channels had begun ‘reporting’, before any state body had even hinted at it, that the ammunition was of Indian make.

A relatively new entrant in the news channel arena fabricated a report that “terrorists had hijacked a plane”. Another was hell bent all night on a report that one of the planes had caught fire.

For five long hours, this was aired on TV before the DG ISPR was forced to tweet once again:

AsimBajwaISPR @AsimBajwaISPR Follow
#Kci Update:Area cleared.No damage to aircraft, fire visible in pics was not plane but a building,now extinguished.All vital assets intact

6:35 PM - 8 Jun 2014



After which, the channel had the gall and shamelessness to say: “Well, the latest update is, no plane has caught fire.”

Or, in other words:

Just kidding, no plane has caught fire. We were simply being complete idiots for the last five hours.

Where is that thing called ‘PEMRA’ which calls itself a regulatory body? Can we have some action now?

Don’t we owe at least an apology to those who sacrificed their lives fighting for us last night? Imagine being their family and watching some nutcase show the dead body of your loved one while gloating, “we showed you this first!”

By the way, another tragedy happened yesterday: a bus carrying Shia pilgrims was bombed by terrorists in Taftan, near the Pakistan-Iran border. As many as 24 people died.

In sane countries, this would have been considered newsworthy. But on our channels, this news was mostly confined to tickers at the bottom of the screen, while most of the night was devoted to the ludicrous vomit-inducing video coverage of the airport attack.

TV journalism really seems dead in Pakistan. And remember, I’ve reported it first.
dawn.com​
 
So, what do you suggest they do? it's their bread and butter, a good solution is to ban them all!
 
So, what do you suggest they do? it's their bread and butter, a good solution is to ban them all!
PEMRA should apply strict rules and all these Media infants should go to school and learn reporting and its limitation. Specially during national crisis ....
 
That's called freedom of expression and media. Enjoy it and stop wasting public money on PEMRA haramkhoors and disband this good for nothing institute.
 
TV journalism really seems dead in Pakistan.
Like in India. Most media sucks. It's all about TRP ratings. Objective and balanced reporting be damned!
Sensationalism is what counts.
 
Same thing happened during 26/11 attacks in India
 
We saw how the security vehicles and ambulances were struggling to get past the frenzy media crowd
Basically there should be a red tape.... no media beyond this point.
Someone should pull up the likes of ARY who kept reporting that one foreign cargo aircraft has been completely destroyed while two others have been engulfed in flames......it was only after the DG ISPR issued a statement that the news channel changed it's tone.
 
Army should be given full authority to red zone an area and make sure so media personnel enter it nor civilians but phir lal masjid utha latay hai awam aur media. Like i said with all the troubles its amazing that the are was neutralized after 5 hours of the attack.
 
Media itself is a black mailing Mafia. When they don't get their way they act like pigs.
 
this is how 24 hour news operates.. the pressure on them is huge... and if they dont perfom (dont get your attention) they will perish in no time.
Its more or less same everywhere.
 
‘We reported it blowing up first!’
By Talha Ahmed
Published about 14 hours ago





News channels compromised the security operation through their live feed which was giving away the security team’s location. -Photo by AP
For those of you lucky enough to have missed out on last night’s live television coverage of the attack at Jinnah International Airport, let me inform you that TV journalism died yesterday.

What else would you call the broadcast of a national tragedy – a terrorist attack of this scale – presented in the form of a summer blockbuster film?

We know now that 13 security officials and PIA employees lost their lives to this horror. They were either dead or about to die when TV channel reporters were shrieking on their microphones with added sound effects and music in the background.

In marathon live transmissions battling each other for who-can-get-their-ratings-through-the-roof-first, news channel anchors and reporters went berserk, dropping even the veneer of civility to sell any and everything they could lay their hands on, to attract viewers.

Some reporters went from one body to another shouting:

Look at this, here’s an injured security official…And look at this one, he looks like he may be dead already.

News anchors were heard half-shocked, half-gloating:

We have just shown you live footage of a dead terrorist

We’re the first to break this news!

Our reporters were the first to tell you a plane has caught fire.

As one could expect in this god forsaken country, all of this was being broadcast alongside a parental advisory note labeled ‘not safe for kids’, and a statement reading “we are not letting journalistic ethics out of hand” in our coverage of this event.

God only knows what would happen if they did let "ethics" get out of hand.

With fire and smoke billowing in the background and inhuman voices screaming on mics, the one thing that just kept going up in this blockbuster was suspense.

If reporters could have had their way, I’m pretty sure they would have loved to set up a mic on a militant and ask him about the various motives and philosophy behind this attack, along with the operational game plan and the make and model of every bullet they intended to fire.

A lot of you may have heard by now that a certain channel compromised the security operation through their live feed which was giving away the security team’s location.

No wonder DG ISPR Asim Bajwa was forced to tweet:
AsimBajwaISPR @AsimBajwaISPR
Follow

#Kci Update:Live coverage of inside airport should stop,hindering operation.Giving away position of assets/troops.Rather helping terrorists

3:15 PM - 8 Jun 2014
1,825 Retweets 793 favorites






Should we call all of this a joke? How do you even categorise this phenomenon?

IG Sindh Police seemed to have been in a similar dilemma when this happened:

Reporter: “How long will it take to wind up this operation?”

IG Sindh: “How am I supposed to answer such a ridiculous question? (Bhai ye kya ahmeqaana sawal hai?)”

A certain channel decided it was a great idea to get live updates from a passenger stuck in one of the planes.

Reporter: “Please update us on the situation around you.”

Passenger: “What can I say, I’m stuck here inside this plane just like all the other passengers. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Reporter: “Don’t worry, the terrorists will be captured soon.”

So when the reporter found the passenger couldn’t update him, he thought he might as well update the passenger instead?

Also read: Just another flight, just another night of terror

All this while, for the larger part of the nation, sitting glued to their TVs in lounges, it seemed like a bomb was going off every 10 minutes because that was the kind of picture being painted.

Quite fittingly for a people stuck in the chronic debate of whether or not the government will go for an operation against the militants, last night saw several channels in conflict over reports of whether or not the airport security operation was over. Still others mindlessly droned on and on about whether the attack constituted "a security lapse".

One wonders what the word ‘report’ even means to these "journalists". Is it required of a report to have at least one semi-credible source? Because many channels had begun ‘reporting’, before any state body had even hinted at it, that the ammunition was of Indian make.

A relatively new entrant in the news channel arena fabricated a report that “terrorists had hijacked a plane”. Another was hell bent all night on a report that one of the planes had caught fire.

For five long hours, this was aired on TV before the DG ISPR was forced to tweet once again:

AsimBajwaISPR @AsimBajwaISPR Follow
#Kci Update:Area cleared.No damage to aircraft, fire visible in pics was not plane but a building,now extinguished.All vital assets intact

6:35 PM - 8 Jun 2014



After which, the channel had the gall and shamelessness to say: “Well, the latest update is, no plane has caught fire.”

Or, in other words:

Just kidding, no plane has caught fire. We were simply being complete idiots for the last five hours.

Where is that thing called ‘PEMRA’ which calls itself a regulatory body? Can we have some action now?

Don’t we owe at least an apology to those who sacrificed their lives fighting for us last night? Imagine being their family and watching some nutcase show the dead body of your loved one while gloating, “we showed you this first!”

By the way, another tragedy happened yesterday: a bus carrying Shia pilgrims was bombed by terrorists in Taftan, near the Pakistan-Iran border. As many as 24 people died.

In sane countries, this would have been considered newsworthy. But on our channels, this news was mostly confined to tickers at the bottom of the screen, while most of the night was devoted to the ludicrous vomit-inducing video coverage of the airport attack.

TV journalism really seems dead in Pakistan. And remember, I’ve reported it first.
dawn.com​
And the Pakistanis here were making fun of Indian Media during 26/11 as how they compromised actions due to live feed. The satellite communication among terrorists and handlers very well showed how they updated because of media feeds?

What goes around comes around. Hope everyone here understand that we all are in same water. Better refrain from making fun just coz someone is an Indian or Pakistani vice versa.
 
In India aftere Mumbai it was ruled that there would be a 30 min time delay while reporting such incidents live which could be of use by the enemy.
 
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