‘Business’ of the Media
In January 2002, a very famous TV personality interviewed a leading Indian industrialist and myself in New York for one of the world’s better known channels on the subject of India-Pakistan relationship. The trend of the discussion was satisfying for me even though I felt that the Indian business magnate seemed to go off into anti-Pakistan monologues with no relevance to the questions being asked. At the end of the taping for nearly 15 minutes, he made a very pointed remark to the TV compere, “you will take care of it?” The man nodded assent, a bit sheepishly I thought as he glanced at me. Two days later when the recording went on air, I knew why. In the 7-8 minutes that was aired, I got in only one sentence, the rest of the talking was done by my industrialist friend. Stunned by this axe-ing, I did a little research. In the face of the millions in revenues in advertising spent by that industrialist on that channel, there was no way the particular TV channel was about to allow me to air my views. My presence was as an “extra”, meant to show the “evenhandedness” of the channel and the TV personality in having a Pakistani point of view. That particularly TV compere finds it difficult to make eye contact with me whenever we come across each other in international gatherings. His so-called integrity and principles compromised, one should take all his interviews with pinch of salt.
