Pakistani TV Hosts: Pride of our nation

Lots of small, compact posts on WordPress, much unlike my typical 1000 word posts which risk losing peoples attention after the 500th word. I wish brevity were a virtue of mine.

I’ve been thinking of something for a long time now. In Pakistan, the media, and in particular the electronic media, has been growing like anything over the recent past. Thus, we have witnessed not only a growth of TV Channels but also a birth of characters who will, perhaps, leave an indelible mark on Pakistani TV history – for doing nothing. I’m talking about TV Anchors. From the most ridiculously dressed Mubashar Lucman (his attempts to be deliberately rude to guests only serve as making him look more stupid in his satin white shirts and electric blue waist coat and tie) to the carpet-headed Hamid Mir (the day this guy comes in a Shampoo commercial…). Within these, there is a broad spectrum of slick haired gentlemen and some women, with incessant frowns (Read: Sana Bucha), others with a Veena Malik-esque dirty touch about them (Read: Mehr Bukhari). The work they do is, generally, meaningless orchestrated noise. Save for that of a few (like Najam Sethi).

Part  of their job description is, I feel, next-level psychic abilities, the super-human strength of using one guests as a means to an end against the other and towards the end of their show giving two broad potential outcomes out of one is OBVIOUSLY going to be certainty, if not the other. And when one of their predictions comes true they harp on about it, endlessly. In this unremitting exchange, what triumphs is not good journalism, but pointless, baseless rhetoric and sensationalism.

In this, hopefully short(er), blog my question simply is this: What credentials do you need to come on TV as a talk show host and a political analyst? What do those people have that we don’t have, which enables them to supposedly draw reasoned conclusions at the end of every political discussion with the camera focusing on their slick heads and their needless frowns (Read: Mehr Bukhari).

I guess what i’m trying to say is that now is the time to devise a suitable platform where we can bring our individual thoughts to the fore, based on what we read in the news, on the internet, what we see happening – for an individual touch is most important – to show these goons how we think it should be done.

If you think about it, how bad can it be? If it seems like it’s going south, we can always employ two well-worn tactics.

1. You can go all angry, give your head some solid jerks and frown at your guest asking them the same thing they just told you. Just like Mehr Bukhari.

OR

2. You can wear a Barney suit, try to be a full badass, badtameez, make ambitious claims on your show and talk more than your guests. Just like Mubashir Lucmaan.