Irresponsible journalism at its best

Questions are being asked if journalistic ethics were followed in reporting the tragedy from the crash site, a difficult to access terrain.

Microphones thrust into the faces of grieving relatives and animations showing the plane going in a loop before crashing were unethical.

Animations of tragedies like suicide bombings depicting a ball of fire each time there is an explosion, or drone strikes in the Northwest, or houses collapsing in earthquakes, are regularly shown on television channels.

The channels seem to take great pleasure in screening this type of ‘creativity’ irrespective of how tragic the occasion. The electronic media would go to any length to ‘be first’ at the scene of a tragedy but almost all the top channels claim that they are always the first to break news.

It is no surprise then that in their enthusiasm for breaking news, they commit blunders. The news of the plane’s black box being found on the day of the crash was flashed by virtually every TV channel. The fact of the matter is that till Friday evening, the authorities were still searching for it!

Similarly, some of the channels reported that there were a few survivors, raising hopes of hundreds of relatives in agony.

The truth was that no one on board had survived.

Pakistan’s top daily Dawn was critical of such irresponsible reporting. In an editorial on Friday, it said that “some things ought to be common sense. The tasteless animations playing on the bottom of some channel screens in a loop ‘showing’ how the plane crashed is one of the mistakes the application of common sense ought to have prevented.”

The paper commented that reporting the loss of human life should be done with some consideration for the dignity of the lives lost and the surviving families. “A tragedy is not an animation, it is real.”

It stressed that TV news channels must reflect on their coverage of the crash in the Margalla Hills to see where they fell short of the highest standards of professional reporting and journalism.

Daily Times said that “in a race for ratings, we saw new lows in the way the electronic media covered the tragic event. There were reporters who boasted of removing ID cards from the dead passengers’ bodies, which in itself is a criminal act because only the authorities in charge of the rescue operation can remove anything from the scene. Not only was it criminal but downright unethical on the part of these journalists. They had no business removing things from the site.

The paper continued that the way some channels had an animation of a crashing plane was disgusting to say the least. It seemed as if there was no editorial control over the way reporters went up to the families of the victims for a sound-byte.

“The bereaved families were already going through a tough time not knowing if their loved ones were alive or not after the interior minister and some media channels talked about ‘survivors’. It was extremely irresponsible of the government officials to give false hope to the families. In other countries when a tragedy like this occurs, we see how measured, cautious and responsible the remarks of officials are,” the newspaper said.

Clearly, television channels have to show more maturity and sense by not hurting the sentiments of the affected people and not to show images of dead bodies and wailing women and grieving relatives.

There have been reports of television crews literally barging into houses of victims to film families in distress. Is this journalism or is it media freedom? - Imran Naeem Ahmad