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takhalus has made a fairly pertinent point as well about ethnicity playing a role. And you’re spot on about class playing a role as well, but when a lot of bad things happen regularly you tend to inadvertently emphathize more with people you can relate you. Almost everyone in the blogosphere can relate to those who died ithe crash like you said but I don’t think it’s necessarily classism in play here if few areas able to emphathize with those who are suffering from the floods

You’ve pointed out something important here, and kudos for providing the caveats and understanding that there is more than just class at play here.

That said…

This is one of the relatively few times I’ll disagree with you. On this specific issue, I don’t think it’s the class – it’s largely the fact that the airplane crash is still in the headlines. A building collapsed in Karachi yesterday,killing four. Last week that would have been big news (and was – DAWN was highlighting the deaths of four people in the monsoon rains just a few days ago…although I had some issues with that too, because reporting 4 deaths in a city of 18 million isn’t proportional, and because they didn’t report that KESC is doing a much better job in the rain than last year.)

There have been other disasters that have received a great deal of attention – for example the Attabad Lake. And I have absolutely no doubt that the floods would have been on the first page of every newspaper and the first story of every news broadcast if it were not for the Air Blue tragedy. Which is what has happened today,by the way – the one TV news broadcast I saw, Geo’s, did give significant coverage to the flood.

I think it’s slightly unfair to quickly blame the media for being elitist. Or the blogosphere – like you said, hardly time to catch breath. I’ll guess that many don’t even know enough about the floods to blog about them.

Shahid sahab’s first comment has some good points, but the second comment kind of ruins what he said. Facebook is no measure of societal values – and besides,the earthquake was in 2005 when Facebook was hardly something Pakistanis were on. Compare the Orkut clubs on the earthquake with the Facebook groups on the airplane disaster – that would be a better comparison.

To a good extent, the slogans of “Punjabi domination” are indeed justified then.

Nabeel sb, I realize that my second comment was hairbrained and somewhat unwanted.

Ahsan sb :- None of the newspapers have devoted an editorial to the issue either. The editors seem to busy with bigger issues.

Only tomorrow will we see some better coverage although a big factor in this lack of coverage is that there couldn’t be any “analysis” and “tajzia” on the floods as they could do on the plane crash.

Got to admit I had no idea what KP stood for.

Great post Butt sb.

I guess you could also examine the role ‘home cities’ play on coverage of certain events. Shahid mentions that urban areas outside Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore are largely ignored, but I would guess that people in Islamabad and Lahore would also feel that big players in the media don’t give them as much prominence as Karachi.

Reiterating Ahsan’s point, I don’t think there’s conscious discrimination, there’s a natural bias which results from most of the major media houses being housed in Karachi.

Nabeel,

Great point about the Attabad lake story which received widespread coverage.

On an unrelated note, I spoke with a person from Larkana in the morning and he was telling me how people there are pissed off at Pubjab for not releasing water sooner. They’ve been, according to this gentleman, begging for water for the past month or so but no water was released. But now so much water is being released, at the time of continuous rains, that serious flooding is anticipated. He further alleges, rather fancifully, that Punjab deliberately held up the water and then flooded the rivers so that it could strengthen the case for Kalabagh; unfortunately, this is apparently a common feeling among Sindhi farmers.

Ahsan

Express Tribune doesnt have 20-21 years old employed as editorial writers — dont know where you got that from —

Just to clarify about Dawn facts-wise

I wrote my first editorial for Dawn when I was 22 — and did that regularly till I was 35 — when I left for The News — also if I remember correctly Dawn had an editorial writer just recently who was well below 30. She is no longer with Dawn but she wrote several editorials and she did her A levels in 2001 — which would make her under 30 for sure.

Besides, when I was there I had at least two colleagues who were in their late 20s or early 30s writing editorials

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Omar R Quraishi
Editorial Pages Editor
The Express Tribune

Omar, the 20-21 yr old point wasn’t to be taken literally. Are you really arguing that there’s a big difference between 24 and 21?

The point is that ExTrib, like DT, has published op-eds by people barely out of college. You may not think that’s a big deal and maybe it isn’t, but certainly not many of Dawn’s opinion writers, commissioned or otherwise, are that young. The standard of writing and analysis on the ExTrib op-ed page, if you don’t mind my saying, is quite low. Splitting hairs on age doesn’t change that fact, nor does passing ominous sounding pronouncements like “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” (whatever that may mean).

ahsan: the a little knowledge line suits the pak media nowadays no?

Media being free and independent must also responsible and must have the skills to differentiate between priority matters. The plane crash was perhaps a one day story but the floods are more devastating, because apart from killing thousands, it has displaced millions.

Ahsan — what that meant was that you didnt know what you are talking about — I dont mind you saying that at all because that is your opinion — lots of other people may disagree or agree — but I thought the point of your post was the age thing and yes if you are going to say on your blog that a national newspaper hires 20 year olds as editorial writers and if your claim is wrong at least be honest (not sure if that is the right word) enough to admit your error — i didnt know that your 20-21 year claim was (a) not to be taken literally and (b) a code phrase for what you think of ET’s editorial pages — Frankly speaking Dawn’s edit pages are boring and often not very topical — and I’m not the only ex-Dawn employee or the only journalist who thinks that — so everything is relative — and please lets not get into angles that newspapers take – yes The News probably does it a lot more but it’s not as if other papers are angels — and I say this having worked at three of them

in any case age can be a factor but sometimes there are exceptions and relatively young people can write quite well — Herald, Dawn’s sister publication thrives on that and surely this isnt something that you are unaware of — i rather read a paper with 30 and 40 year olds writing than 70 year olds –

Ok Omar fair enough, I will change the 20-21 yr old point in the post. I could say a lot more about the rest of your comment but will choose not to.

Sorry that i didn’t have the time to read all the comments but my response to the writer and few beginning comments is that maybe you are unaware of how much attention these recent floods received.

True, the plane crashed received alot of attention and i believe it should have, because of the gravity of the event and possible errors that led to it. To put it briefly, we need to ensure that such events do not repeat. However, the floods received no less attention. Over the past few days the media is focused equally on both the events and scrutinizing the facts to find the victims and culprits.

The presence of the reporters and journalists, philanthropists and doctors, in areas like naushera is a proof of the commitment of these people. Relief camps have been setup, people from all walks of life are contributing to save the victims. Most areas in the north and north west are still unreachable but the best effort is being put in. Helicopter sorties are regularly being conducted, aid is being air-dropped and people are being rescued.

About the facebook and the pages formed over it, i really believe that solidarity is what we need right now. It is heartening to know that scores of people are united for the same cause. Furthermore, if dedicated pages are not formed for the flood victims, then it is our fault and all of us are to be blamed. If we can form pages to honor our friends, then why not our countrymen at large. If this community is divided, then we are equally at fault with the politicians!

last but not least, rather than JUST criticizing everything, please put in some effort yourselves as well. Pakistan is our only homeland and there is none other, save it…

Omar R. Qureshi,

With your vast experience in the English print media you could’ve provided us with an insight into the class bias in reportage, which by the way was Ahsan’s central thesis, unfortunately you chose to oppose a facetious statement made by Ahsan. What a wasted opportunity.

Also, while Express Tribune’s op-eds may or may not be written by 21 year olds, the headlines at times certainly seem to be written by 5 year olds. Now that is a fact.

@AKS
“… the headlines at times certainly seem to be written by 5 year olds”…

BURN!

And Qureshi’s assertion that Dawn’s Editorials aren’t topical is wholly untrue; they have dealt with mob justice, violence against women, indecent reporting of a plane crash, blasphemy laws, respectively, all within the past month. I think we can all agree that these are all topics that were quite relevant during this period.

That isn’t just a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of actually reading the paper.

@Ahsan
I find that what you’re referring to is a problem that exists far beyond our own borders. At the end of the day newspapers are going to print what sells, and unfortunately that isn’t often the plight of the lower classes.
Now one can argue, as I have, that it is the job of these publications to shape narratives around the globe and tell their readers what it is they should be concerned with, but that’s a whole debate in and of itself.

I will debate the extent to which such decisions are not conscious ones. Particularly in Pakistan, editorial staffs and publishers are well aware of what segment of society is shelling out Rs.15-25 per day (that’s a big deal for a large portion of Pakistanis), and in my opinion pander to that class to sell more papers. Would they admit it, certainly not, but I think you’d be naive to assume it’s not a conscious consideration.

Sorry for the labeling, the last Anon. comment is mine.

Can I extend this argument to the fact that only bomb blasts in major cities receive attention. Yes, lack of presence of journalists and remoteness is a problem, but don’t you think that the extreme lack of coverage of the blast in Mohmand which killed more than 50 was disappointing and saddening.

You can go and see on the Tribune website that “flooding on the constitution avenue” is more important than the dead in KP and Rajanpur while infact constitution avenue is merely inundated and flooding is what the people in the other areas are encountering.

A bit off-topic but this extends to the fact that socio-economic importance of people in urban areas outside Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore is negligible as well. Have you ever seen newsreports on Faisalabad or Hyderabad receiving attention?

Besides the fact that these newspapers being English cater to the urban upper middle class, it is disappointing that the urdu newspapers and the electronic media fails to cater to the problems of the people outside the three urban areas we all know. In the end the media will provide news according to market demands. People in urban areas being the main customers do not really care that much about the rural populace.

I do not mean to be insensitive, but yesterday everyone amongst us (and by us I mean the urban upper middle class since the rural populace or urban poor does not read tis blog), knew somebody who had died in the plane crash within the six degrees of separation. However, hardly anyone of us would know anybody who has died in the floods and none of the persons who have died in the floods would know anybody who died in the plane crash.

A society divided along class, socio-economic status and much more.

Besides the shock value and global attention that focuses on airplane crashes, the socio-economic factors and class structure yield this as well:-

http://www.facebook.com/pages/RIP-passengers-of-AirBluePakistan-28-July-2010/113919061991901

13,000 people remembering the people who died in the crash.

More people join the Margalla Towers remembrance than the combined victims of the earthquake. More remember the Marriott Bombings and the Parade lane attack than any other specific incident.

Besides the fact that the class structure of Pakistanis on the interweb is of course urban upper middle and elite class clearly responsible for the skewed “interest”, it disappoints me that the larger section of the society is entirely missing from their discourse (and they include me as well).

The isolation in our ghettos, our exclusive entertainment and the overall exclusivity and isolation from the average man is disappointing, disgusting and disheartening.

A society that looses communal values of unity is bound to break even further.

Class isn’t the only issue..districts like Nowshera, Charsadda have some of the highest literacy rates in K-P
Ethnicity and being outside the pakistani beltway play major factors as well..

Consider this historical example..how many Pakistanis have heard of the Qissa Khwani bazaar massacre? How many know anything about the hur rebellion? Even in the 1970′s, during the Baloch revolt..the opposition from NWFP and Balochistan really struggled to garner sympathy from the general public..

More recent examples of the Mohmand bomb blast or the Lakki bomb blast reporting are equally worth mentioning.

But, there are regional differences as well, the way the swati IDP’s were treated was vastly different compared to the way the Bajauri and Waziri ones were. On the other extreme the Baloch IDP’s have been totally ignored since 2004.

None of this is a surprise in my eyes, after all we are talking about a place where there were more protests about the flotilla attack than about poor Jalib Balochs death.

Ahsan,

Kudos on shedding light on an issue which not many have really noticed.This would probably make for a fascinating econometric study with plenty of statistically significant results.

Think about it:

1)Natural Calamities

2)Crime

3)Terrorist Attacks

4)Political Violence/ Army Operations

I wouldn’t be surprised if Geography, Ethnicity (within certain geographic belts) and Income all play statistically significant roles.You could extend the study into other stuff like average Govt. Expenditure (not transfer funds, but spending per district + some ratio of armed forces expenditures that stimulate the economy of the locale).There should be lots of data, and lots of possibilities.

It would be interesting to note the effect on the probability of coverage if any of the reported events happen to be on armed forces personal, installations, families or areas in which their presence in ubiquitous.

Butt Sahab, get some UChicago kid on it, it’s an Econometric study after all!