Why is Pakistani TV news such low quality compared to Afghanistan?

[Pakistan Space Agency]

Once upon a time, Dawn News opened an English language news channel. It was the only Pakistani News Channel that was of Western standards but people of Pakistan rejected it, demanding something more sensationalist and gimmicky.

 

[Pakistani Fighter]

I recently watched TOLO TV channel of Afghanistan and I was amazed how good it was. It was actually a real news program with good camera quality and clear bulletins easy to understand. I was surprised how good Afghan news media is compared to Pakistan.

Geo, Dunya, and Samaa are absolute trash compared to Afghan news outlets. Pakistani media dramatizes headlines, uses terrible graphics, and has the worst camera quality I have ever seen. How does Afghanistan have clear HD cameras for their news but Pakistan has 480p resolution? Afghan reporters are better too, they stick to the facts while half the time Pakistani reporters are just making up new headlines for more clickbait.

I wish Pakistan had a real TV channel as good as TOLO. Instead all of Pakistan's media is rubbish like India.

Look at the difference in reporting

That Afghan news caster is so cute

I think its because most of media houses and their media owners are from Karachi like Geo, ARY and especially that POS Samaa. And that's why most of the times, issues of Karachi are being discussed on media channels as if rivers of milk are flowing in rest of Pakistan.

WTF!!! Har jaga Karachi ko ghaseetna zaroori hota hai kiya?
@Mentee

 

[xyxmt]

quality dont matter, what matters is how much of black mail money they can grab so they can pay 30 lakh a month to their anchors and lot more for them. Did govt have the balls to audit these TV channels and see how they are surviving on a very little amount of advertisement they get

 

[Mentee]

WTF!!! Har jaga Karachi ko ghaseetna zaroori hota hai kiya?
@Mentee

Karachi like other cities is nothing special to me. He's somewhat right that small cities are most of the time sidelined and onyl Karachi and Lahore gets the lime light. But he's factually incorrect about the ownership part. Mir Shakeel is pubjabi, so is miya amir of dunya news. Don't know about sultan lakhaani. After all they are doing business so whatever brings ratings.

 

[Jungibaaz]

I can't say anything about Afghan news channels, I've not had much exposure beyond Tolo news. Indian media IMO in many ways is as bad, and some examples of theirs are worse. But for sure Pakistani TV news media does suffer low quality.

I'd say most of the problems with our news media can be summarised in three categories:

1. Style and content - Our media houses and TV channels are incentivised to attract viewership, which sells advertising and of course makes them money. For this reason we can see things like news clips that are stylised like cheap action flicks and headlines that last almost 10 minutes. They are full of overly dramatic music and video editing.
2. Journalistic standards and rigour - News channels often air false stories, half baked reports or they themselves don't bother to fact check what they are reporting. They do not invite expert opinion where it is needed. I see panel discussions on the state of the economy, they'll invite every yahoo from every party to shout at one another, but never an economist to discuss the facts and options. It's what also leads to things like water powered car charlatans being taken seriously.
   
   There are many so-called journalists famous in Pakistan and who have a huge following. But plenty of them have never done a single investigative report in their lives. Their sources are plants or fakes, they come up with random bs to suit political agendas, or they straight-up lie or editorialise for their own agenda. Corruption is of course a part of the incentives. And even if the integrity is all there, our journos are rarely subject matter experts in anything. Journalism is a profession, old school journos have proper training, some of the newer ones don't have any training or understanding.
   
   This I believe is a problem of the Pakistani people and their lack of education and critical thinking ability, far more than a journalistic issue.
3. Press freedom, independence and censorship - Pakistan has never truly had press freedom, and where we have moved towards it, it was nascent and soon crushed again. Just like our fledgling democracy. We go through periods of overt censorship, covert and partial censorship, and even in this new era of free media, our media is not truly free, and there are multiple reasons for this.
   
   Our TV news channels and papers are owned by businessmen, or form large companies with many subsidiaries. As businesses, it is within their interest to survive and not do anything that will lead to their financial demise.
   
   Journos still cannot report on plenty of stories, and there are some institutions that are beyond criticism. News channels and journalists are threatened, coerced and influenced into backing the establishment or at least not openly challenging them. Threats are made both in person and anonymously to journalists and their respective media houses. PEMRA is employed to shut down coverage and starve the channels of ad revenue if they do not comply. NAB cases are made where necessary when certain journos go too far. In the past a lot of this was more hidden, in the last 3-4 years, these forms of censorship and curbs on press freedom have ramped up significantly.

So these are the three main issues. The last issue is by far the most serious and pressing.

 

[Gentelman]

Here media is just disappointing. The entertainment industry is waiting to be forced to include 1 hour specific children program, 1 hour research program and cut the ducking crappy saas bahu dewar nand topic dramas and involve thrillers, fantacy and action and also include 1 talkshow and cut the useless "aam khao gy" game show crap.
News channels are also waiting to be forced to openly tell which political narrative they support and have wide array of topics in talk shows.
The state needs to educate nation by making PTV examplary and run a state campaign to also educate/force media to follow those standards!