Vantage Point

Sana Bucha’s Lekin is fast turning into an unrelenting bastion of criticism against the PTI just as the programme’s facebook page is becoming an avenue for PTI fans to unload their anger against Lekin’s policy of PTI-bashing. Whoever has set the direction of Lekin and trying to balance Geo’s programmes’ lineup by setting up anti-PTI programmes, neither seems to be aware of the prevailing mood of people on the street or aware of the fact as to how forcefully feedback can fly back to Lekin. 

Sana deserves appreciation for formulating such an unpopular policy or owning it. You need courage to defy the current and swim against it. Journalists are a respected lot and more so a female journalist. It would neither be prudent nor appropriate for PTI fans to make Sana subject to irreverence, even if she asks for it. It needs two to fight and make a mess and we all know how political mess sells on talk shows. PTI fans should understand that they must not drag into any war with any media personnel, as it would only distract them from other goals. It would not make any sense to become a tool to improve anyone’s TRP.  

Sana has constantly been asking PTI leaders about party’s agenda and somehow the formers have been proving incapable of responding to her queries properly.  It shows incomplete homework on part of PTI officials who appear in Lekin.

On the other hand, as the derisive point of having no electables has changed with taunting argument of having electables of disrepute, PTI does not seem to have won itself any reprieve from some of the media pundits. The tones are even more sharper and moods more merciless. Anchorpersons, who want to take their programmes to the next level, sometimes resort to diversify their viewership through different means – hostility and refined rudeness being two of them.

Salim Safi’s special Jirga with Imran Khan on 23rd December is one such programme whose theme was nothing but to denigrate the guest through hurling full questions and allowing half answers. How a programme could be rated whose host seems to have made everything unfairly personal with the guest? There has to be a difference between a TV interview and a criminal investigation.  

Safi wrote a column two days after the interview and complained about derogatory feedback he received on his programme in which he took PTI chairman to task.

Sana Bucha, in her programme on the eve of PTI’s rally in Karachi, observed that crusade against corruption is a single-line agenda of PTI and that PTI did not seem to be having anything concrete on its agenda. What anchorperson did not realize is that this single-point agenda is enough to solve at least half of the issue country is facing today.  If PTI just realizes its promise of eradicating corruption — without doing anything else — it may return to the state national institutions that used to be revenue-earners in recent past. Corruption is not a one-word issue, it’s a bane of our lives.

While derogatory behavior cannot be condoned, Safi and Sana should also look at the issue of the furious reaction they receive, purportedly from PTI fans, from a different angle. Do they also receive such enthusiastic feedback from PPP, PML, MQM, JI, JUI or followers of other political parties? I believe it’s only the PTI lot that chases everyone who ‘badmouths’ against its leader. It shows how deeply, madly and dedicatedly PTI chairman is revered and the passion with which his followers are attached with him, speaks for itself.