Adil Najam
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Adil Najam
Watching the news from Pakistan has become increasingly painful. All the more so this Eid when so many Pakistanis remain in distress. But this Eid the broadcasts on just about all news channels also had a touch of vulgarity that made things all that much more unbearable and made one cringe in distaste.
On newscast after newscast, in newsclip after newsclip, there was a cartoonish parade of one ‘leader’ after the other giving ‘Eidee‘ to and ‘spending Eid’ with flood victims. It was not just the artificiality of these clips – each of which seemed to be an exact copy of the other – that was nauseating, it was the sense that neither the leaders nor the newsfolks who were covering it understood or cared for the effect that this “manufactured news” has on the flood victims that they were using as “props” in their little dramas, or on the national morale.
For one it was another political photo-op and for the other just another way to fill airtime.
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