Biases of the American Press

Anyone who watched the 11 minute long CBS documentary on Pakistan last year(2000) titled "America's Worst Nightmare" knows that it depicted a terrifying portrayal of Pakistan as a State on the verge of social and political meltdown. General Musharraf recently termed the potential scenario of mullahs armed with nukes as, "bad science fiction." The question is why is Pakistan, and not India "America's Worst Nightmare?"

The Press in the United States is indisputably the freest in the world to publish whatever it likes, and what news stories it does in fact choose to publish every day are the objective truth. However, one must add a caveat about the kinds of stories both the New York Times and the Washington Post choose to publish on a continual basis, since they are the most influential newspapers in the U.S. As an avid reader of both the former, and of Pakistani newspapers, including Dawn, I can make the following general observations by virtue of comparative analysis.

The Washington Post and the New York Times publish negative news stories about India on an infrequent basis, with respect to the Kashmir dispute, although they have often published news stories on the rise of religious extremism in India in the past. The bulk of news stories they publish on India now, emphasize it as the land of economic opportunity for foreign corporations to invest in, with a friendly English speaking workforce. The killing of unarmed demonstrators in held-Kashmir by Indian troops, for example, most frequently finds little or no space in news print at all, having become a routine affair. Even in corruption scandals, (one cannot help but think, in sharp contrast to previous democratic Pakistani governments), the Indian government is seen as democratic, responsive, and accountable, in American news coverage.

The overall perspective brought to readers is undeniably of a country on the march forward, that shares American democratic values, again in sharp contrast with the general impression of Pakistan being conveyed in the U.S media. Objective reality, given the selective political restrictions on Freedom of Assembly in Pakistan, and "the Orwellian nature" of the NAB ordinance? (to quote from a NYT Editorial)

The world has moved to the point today, thanks to the information revolution and the global political economy, that Humankind has enshrined Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion, Association, Rule of law, Due process, Democracy, and Nondiscrimination on the basis of either gender or religious belief, as Universal Human Values. The denial of these rights, and the torture and imprisonment of political opponents by governments worldwide, is no longer acceptable State behavior. The clock is steadily ticking on the time left for the totalitarian, and authoritarian regimes, including those purportedly clothed in religion for their legitimacy. A common feature of such regimes is complete State control over the media. This is usually justified in the name of either State security or even religion.

It is an undeniable fact that no Pakistani government over the past 53 years has ever been truly responsive to the press or public opinion, whereas the Indian government undeniably is today. For most of Pakistan's history in fact, there have been no free press, or political freedoms at all. Public opinion was manufactured by the likes of Altaf Gauhar and subsequent info-ministers, as the press was not allowed to reflect it.

Pakistan's true history continues to be a long uninterrupted story of the State against the people, and the deprivations the State subjects them to, with an occasional interlude for wars with India, to justify it all.

Both the WP and NYT devote enormous amounts of coverage to Human Rights issues worldwide, and increasingly focus on China, Cuba, and Muslim countries that violate the norms of due process and rule of law. At the same time, there is only minimal or zero news coverage, if at all, of Indian atrocities in IOK. There is no reason to doubt that any of the individual news stories they choose to publish are not objectively true. It is however the sheer emphasis in the quantity and volume of newsprint devoted to quite valid HR issues in China and in Muslim countries, vis-a-vis the comparably nonexistent coverage of Indian HR violations in IOK, in newsprint, that is most troubling. Perhaps part of the answer also lies in the fact that

strategically, India is viewed as a useful counterweight to the PRC.

It is also a fact that there are no Muslim columnists in any major newspaper in the U.S, and perhaps 20% of American newspaper columnists are Jewish-Americans, (and that percentage is higher in the most influential American newspapers such as the NYT and WP) to say nothing about media ownership and control over editorial policies. So while news stories in the U.S press on Israel are in fact objective and credible, American public opinion on current events in the Middle East is shaped by a very decidedly one sided, pro-Israel point of view by Jewish-American columnists, barring the occasional, rare op-ed piece written by other people, that finds its way into the newspaper in the name of editorial balance. Israeli politicians also frequently write articles expressing their point of view in these two newspapers.

At the same time that these opinion makers are constantly commenting on the Chinese, Cuban, and numerous Muslim countries governments persistent HR violations, there is not a single word being published by any national Columnist commenting on equally serious Indian and Israeli HR violations. This selectivity is apparent not from any individual column on any given day, but only from a long term reader's perspective of what is being published, and what is not. So if the concern for Human rights is Universal, why is there no criticism at all of Indian HR violations in editorials or op-ed columns? The answer may lie in the fact that both Israel and India are seen as established democracies, and thus afforded a great deal more latitude in the American press than undemocratic countries.

Therein lies the rub for Pakistan, because over the past 50 years, it is the threat to national security posed by India that has been used repeatedly to justify the suspension of democratic freedoms and civil liberties over extended periods of time. Instead of strengthening the country against external enemies, it has ended up weakening it from within.

The traditional American view grounded in Wilsonian idealism born out of W.W.I, that liberal democracies do not wage wars against each other is largely unrefuted by the American experience in the 20th Century. This undoubtedly influences America's view that India is not a threat to American security interests, whereas the PRC is viewed as a significant potential threat. India is therefore viewed as a secular, modern, liberal democracy in contrast to the PRC and Pakistan. The extremist conduct of Hindu fundamentalists is thus viewed as an aberration easily contained within the normal democratic framework of the Indian State. Conversely, in the context of an ideological State, religious fundamentalism is viewed as more threatening given the presumed, inherently deep rooted ideological legitimacy conferred upon the confluence of religion and politics by the State. Pakistan today, is neither liberal, nor democratic.

While the American press has been extensively focused on the reported 17% increase in Chinese defense expenditure this year, in contrast, there has been no mention at all of the 40% increase in the Indian defense budget over the past two years. Also, while Vajpayee's initial promise to allow the APHC leaders to visit Pakistan was reported positively in the American press, India's subsequent backtracking on the issue has received no press coverage.

All this is not to say that the American foreign policy elite is not actively aware of what is really going on in the Subcontinent. A chance meeting last year with an xAmerican ambassador to Pakistan, in NYC at a conference, confirmed that the U.S foreign policy making elite is very much aware that India has increased defense expenditures, while the government of Pakistan has shown restraint in not responding in kind. The fact that it cannot, without busting the economy, is also well known.

News coverage of Pakistan in the U.S is almost always uniformly negative, focused on the rise of religious extremism in Pakistani mainstream politics and society, and increasingly now, the lack of civil liberties, and the abeyance of democracy which certainly can only have a negative impact on mainstream American public opinion, which incidentally includes the very business people Pakistan would like to induce to invest in the country who read these newspapers and form an impression about the country and its state of affairs.

Well, if the government of Pakistan is bent on following negative policies favoring the appeasement of religious fanatics, and strengthening non-democratic forces, this is the predictable fallout for the country's image abroad where it matters most.

In the U.S, the press and media are highly influential. Perhaps near universal literacy combined with democracy and a responsive government has something to do with it. Governments in Pakistan have been able to ignore the press and remain largely unaccountable to the people, because, to paraphrase Nawaz Sharif's reported remarks in 1993, "Only 5% of the population reads newspapers, so who cares what they publish about me anyway."

Perhaps therein too lies the answer as to why BB and NS were able to loot and plunder with such impunity. Only the privatization of PTV now, can help prevent a recurrence of the same loot and plunder by a different set of rogues in government in the future. That is the lesson to be digested from the tehelka.com episode in India. Pakistani history is full of such scandals but an indifferent atmosphere of public apathy has been created because the authoritarian structure of the state is unresponsive to the people.

It is highly desirable in a functioning democracy, that if such an episode were to occur in Pakistan in the future, which it undoubtedly will, sooner or later, given the long history of corruption, the people should create an uproar, and ministers should resign. If they don't resign, they deserve to be pelted with rotten tomatoes by the public, wherever they go, while they remain in office. This is democracy.

The only expeditious way to insure this is to use the privatization of television as a shortcut to the object of mass literacy, which is to empower the common people and give them a say in the affairs of State. For the past 50 years the State has done all it could to avoid this.

Until Pakistan becomes a functioning democracy, where the Pakistani people's own Constitutional rights are respected (not expediently hedged), and State policies of condoning the actions of certain people who believe in violence are sidelined, it will remain 'America's Worst Nightmare.'

The writer is a law student stuck in limbo in one Dante's outer circles in Dar ul Harb, New York. He also contributes frequently to the Letters to the editor column of the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, and remains the scourge of fun'dementalism