Recently the terrorists in Pakistan have been using many
advanced weapons, but most of the people have not yet realized that the most
effective of the advanced weapons adopted by the terrorists are not any new
kind of firearms. It’s something more effective and more dangerous. It’s the media.
One might think that at least in Pakistan, none of the TV channels is owned by
any terrorist or extremist organizations, then how could the terrorists have
used the media for terrorism?
As a matter of fact, in Pakistan the terrorist outfits and
banned organizations are certainly not allowed to broadcast anything, but the
Pakistani law is not applicable in other countries where the organizations
banned by Pakistan might be enjoying full liberty. So, there exist some channels, being broadcasted
from other countries, which primarily preach extremism. Though none of these
channels is allowed to be included in the Pakistani cable network, but
individuals can watch these channels through satellite. Besides terrorists also use the internet to
serve their purpose, despite the government’s cyber crackdown.
This is not the major issue though. Such channels are not
quite popular and affect only a very tiny part of the Pakistani population. The
problem is that nowadays the Pakistani news media has been instrumental in
augmenting terror in the Pakistani society. Though it’s not owned by the
terrorists, but unintentionally it has become the most useful tool for them.
Terrorism is the "systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal". To intimidate a single person, the terrorist will use
violence against him. But to intimidate the whole population, the terrorist can’t
use violence against every person in the population. So what they do is to use
violence against some people, and let the media deliver the terror to the whole
population. In older times, when there used to be no electronic media,
terrorists would have had a tough time to intimidate the population. The news of
violence in one city could have never reached the other cities with such
swiftness and effectiveness as nowadays.
In addition to over emphasizing the reports of terrorist
activities, the Pakistani news media rarely hesitates to show graphic images,
sometimes without any warning. There is absolutely no sense in showing all this
to the whole population while it’s understood that these reports only depress
and terrorize the population. Doing all this just fulfills the goal of the
terrorists i.e. to coerce the people.
Of course it doesn’t mean that terrorist acts shouldn’t be
reported at all. But there should be a proper way to report it. What would be
more delightful for the terrorists than getting the whole population terrorized
with a single blast, as if the whole population was present at the scene. It’s like
providing audience to the terrorists. Terrorists will feel quite helpless once
the Pakistani media learns to report an event like it should be reported.
