The Press Does Matter
Posted: April 6th, 2009 | Author: Maha Rafi Atal | Filed under: Journalism, Politics, South Asia | Tags: Ayesha Haq, journo ethics, Musharraf, Pakistan | 1 Comment »To all those who scoff at the notion of the press as a social institution that is something more than the sum of its participants, witness the controversy over the recent move by the Pakistani government to free the judges shackled by President Musharraf two years ago. I’ve blogged about the civil rights issues in Pakistan before and written about them elsewhere, but today, I spoke with Ayesha Tammy Haq, host of a business show there, about the media’s promotion of and even active involvement in the lawyers’ movement.
On one level, the Pakistani experience gives credence to claims that citizen-media can adequately discharge the civil-society-strengthening duties of a Fourth Estate. On another level, as Haq pointed out in our conversation, journo-activism has yet to function over any long period of time–it’s quite effective when marshaled to some political cause, speaking truth to power on behalf of the public, but what becomes of the activist bloggers once their chosen candidate is in office? How effective and/or credible can they be as outside critics or interpreters who decipher power for the public if they helped bring that power into being?
Finally, it’s worth noting that professional journalists, citizen-activists and the lawyers themselves argued that a restored judiciary would protect the free press. That’s the paradox that always rankles me when it comes to citizen-journalism. While their methods threaten the idea of “the Press” as a semi-independent profession, the citizen-journalists almost always claim there is.
