The Pakistani Spectator

Sports, Entertainment, News and possibly every person in this age of information wants to be part of media in any manner possible. Gone are the days when press conferences used to be held to convey your message through the print media in some hotel followed by a tea party or lunch/dinner. I personally know some very respected journalists who used to check about such press conferences just for enjoying the follow-up course.

Some even used to inquire about the menu of the entertainment which used to follow the official press briefings. The celebrities were dependent on the pens of the media and journalists were happy doing this image building  besides reporting the actual news. Our sports heroes and film heroes were also looking for some color column interview on first page of the sports or film editions of the newspapers. PTV and Radio Pakistan were more or less under Government control and only promoted those who were approved by the Ministry of Information/APP.

Time changes quickly and with the dawn of professionalism in every business,sports,entertainment and media came the slogan camera,lights action slogan into private channels. Pakistan did tremendously good work in the electronic media industry despite lack of capital,training and facilities. I must appreciate the good work done by he pioneers of the industry who had just the Zee Network and Star Network to follow and compete as well. We had suddenly become used to of watching high quality sports coverage of ESPN/Star Sports, Super Sports, Fox Sports and some other European Networks which were backed by tremendous technicians, billions of dollars of capital and crews of hundreds if not thousands equipped with latest technology in the form of computer graphics, softwares, audio/visual facilities and producers of highest quality. Live coverage of any event is not a joke and takes hours of continuous hard work and resources and we just sit in our cozy rooms to watch these events. Pakistan was lucky to have one of the finest brains in the world in the name of Dr.Ata ur Rehman who was Minister for Information Technology when IT started to make its foot hold in Pakistan. We are indebted to Dr.Ata ur Rehman for his excellent work which he put in providing us the state of the art infrastructure for IT sector in Pakistan. FIOS  Optic Fiber Network which is  the backbone or nervous system of IT was brought to Pakistan during his tenure and his second project called Virtual University of Pakistan is perhaps the best investment by the Government in any sector in our 63 years life. The students and faculty of Virtual University must as a mark of respect for the great Dr.Ata ur Rehman recommend to the Government to name their University in his name.

Probably I got some off track and forgot my topic which is a matter of concern for people like me at least. Ten sports and Geo Sports were first local sports channels catering to Pakistani viewers and they had to work really really hard to make inroads in the market and break the monopoly of International Sports Channels. Both of them deserve our kudos for this as they are progressing gradually. Sports journalism in Pakistan was never considered to be a priority for any budding journalist due to lack of opportunities and very few were doing this job. They had to do some commentary work on radio or PTV and getting into these two institutions was impossible due to government control. Private channels provided opportunities to these journalists to become anchors and commentators of various sports and started to learn the tricks of the trade by following some other anchors and channels. The real problem was language as all other channels are aired in English but GEO Super is a Urdu language sports channel and requires proper translated version of various sports.

Unfortunately some of the anchors have taken upon themselves to reform all the sports and their organizations and the anchors want to be part of this re-formative action as well. They even promote some aspirants for the coveted jobs of PHF and PCB but hardly look into PSF,PFF or POA.  I fail to understand the policy of the channel regarding their guests attending programs like Bolain Kya Baat Hay which is hosted by Mirza Iqbal Baig. This program was excellent in the start when Fakhr Imam started it but then he quit the program after it was instant hit. Now the participants are ridiculed by the host, made fun off through sarcasm and  grouping is encouraged openly in this program. Positive discussions and analysis are a thing of past and now we are forced to listen to continuous wisdom of host and his memory of records which he tries to fit in every sentence. His knowledge about the game is average and hardly knows the technicalities like playing with straight bat, elbow position, foot movement, still head, bio-mechanics, height advantage in sports, physical fitness etc. Sadly players and administrators of a particular city are promoted repeatedly and the channel looks like a regional separatist organisation which is ready to blame every person of authority without any purpose. Just concluded RBS T20 was a pathetic show as far as commentary is concerned and some of the commentators were clearly siding with Karachi Team with full force and even KCCA President was also busy in commentary work.

It would be great if GEO Super realizes the situation and immediately puts a balancing act to rectify the situation and deeply look into the policies behind the channel. I would love to see it as a Pakistani Channel instead of regional channel involved in factionalism, disharmony and dishonest player amidst galaxy of sports channels. Its so easy to change the channel with push of a button but I follow my country’s sports with lot of passion and for that I need to watch GEO Super and these are my honest observations on it. I don’t mean to hurt the feeling of any person,area,class,city or region. I want Pakistan to be a force to reckon with in International arena like glorious old days when we were Olympic and World Champs in Hockey, British Open, World Open and all the Opens of Squash, World Champ in cricket without any professionalism.