[at-l] OT: Media Issues:

[dfaddleton@mindspring.com (dfaddleton@mindspring.com)]

War of media

By our correspondent [Balochistan Post]

[http://www.balochistanpost.com/item.asp?ID=641] 

ISLAMABAD: If the US war against terrorism turned in to the 3rd World War, the credit will go to the news hungry and ambitious TV networks, remarked an observer here on Sunday. 

The US media put Afghanistan and so-called Islamic terrorism to a media trial even before there was any official word about the involvement of Ben Laden in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. And now the media wants to show the footage of bombing and devastation in Afghanistan, he added. 

A widely quoted TV network of the Middle East telecast the news that immediately after the launch of the US military campaign against Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden and smash his network, curfew would be imposed in Pakistan from Karachi to Khyber. The Pakistan government took a serious notice of it and made it clear that the news was totally baseless and figment of imagination of its sponsor. 

Another TV network showed massive patrolling by the Pakistan Army troops along Pakistan's borders that the spokesman described as ridiculous, saying that patrolling is never done by a huge number of uniformed personnel. When Information Secretary Syed Anwar Mahmood protested to the TV channel, the network took the plea that the report was given by an international video service, presently working in Pakistan. He made it clear that border patrolling is always done by a small group of troops. 

The secretary told the TV network that there has been no movement of Pakistani troops towards the border with any neighbouring country because there is no threat to Pakistan. A Korean journalist got the news that emergency has been declared in Pakistan in view of the possible American attack on Afghanistan. The spokesman told him that the state of emergency was proclaimed in 1998 after Pakistan had detonated its nuclear devices. The emergency was again promulgated on October 14,1999, two days after the Army had taken over. The journalist said that he got the news from a Pakistani colleague. 

More than once, the government has strongly protested verbally as well as in writing to an American TV network, that is a household name in Pakistan, for showing a fabricated report on alleged camps for training terrorists to fight the Indian forces in the occupied Kashmir. The TV channel president told the official spokesman that he shares the Pakistan government's concern on the issue. "We are ready to telecast anything provided by you on the subject to present Pakistan's point of view," the network chief said. It was stated in the report that the video was provided by the Indian army. "Does any terrorist training camp exist where the trainees wear military uniform as shown in the report?" the spokesman asked. 

The American media men are too ambitious for the news obviously trying to prepare the ground for the US attack on Afghanistan while journalists of other countries, assembled in Pakistan, are taking it lightly. The government is worried about the spate of rumours and disinformation at a time when a great number of foreign journalists, perhaps matching the tally of the early days of the Afghan war, are gathered in Pakistan.