What we see missing in Pakistan’s electronic media is the visibility of credible owners, professional department heads and their bosses with the exception of less than the fingers of two hands. They may decide on their own to which group they belong: less than the fingers of the two hands or rest of the unworthy crowd.

1. Electronic media’s performance in Pakistan
and
Geo Network as stand-alone role-model for others!
What we see missing in Pakistan’s electronic media is the visibility of credible
owners, professional department heads and their bosses with the exception of
less than the fingers of two hands. They may decide on their own to which
group they belong: less than the fingers of the two hands or rest of the
unworthy crowd.
2014
Zahid Hussain Khalid
Written for his blogs on Slideshare, Facebook, LinkedIn and WordPress
4/27/2014

2. 1
Electronic media’s performance in Pakistan
and
Geo Network as stand-alone role-model for others!
By: Zahid Hussain Khalid
Globalization has opened a large number of new windows of opportunities accompanied with
challenges and risks in content packaging, showcasing, marketing and screening for content
development sales and marketing staffs of the television channels.
Content licensing, sale, syndication and acquisition are a few of the normal broadcasting media practices
across the globe. So are the prospecting for sponsorship and advertising to balance the income and
expenses and make handsome profits too. Any initiative to make profit for remaining ahead of
competitors, therefore, is legitimately the genuine right of any media group anywhere in the world.
Having said that, each step in content creation, designing, production, packaging, licensing, syndication,
sale and acquisition has to minutely go through a very delicate and fine process of scrutiny to make sure

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that institutional and national interests are not compromised. For doing so, what the television
networks need are highly professional management teams to head different identified areas from the
development and fine-tuning of ideas to their implementation and from idea development, production
and packaging of contents to their sales and marketing. What we see missing in Pakistan’s electronic
media is the visibility of credible owners, professional department heads and their bosses with the
exception of less than the fingers of two hands. They may decide on their own to which group they
belong: less than the fingers of the two hands or rest of the unworthy crowd. The reason is
understandably simple.
The permission of cross-media ownership and
the charm of hooking in the viewers round the
clock through the irresistible pull of breaking
news have made news broadcasting business a
very attractive opportunity for anyone in
Pakistan who has bags full of money resulting in
proliferation of media outlets. Being an
intellectually sensitive business demanding
exceptionally unique overall management
Abilities, the main challenge to Pakistan’s broadcasting industry, according to Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman
himself, was and even now is to find suitable professionals for responsible positions.
What the majority of media owners did? They
have picked up the reporters, journalists and a
few managers in different local and foreign
media houses and made them directors,
executive producers and anchors! There was
nothing wrong in doing that. What was wrong
was that their credibility, links with corrupt
politicians, irresponsible government officials
and criminal corporate bosses of objectionable
character and national and foreign intelligence
agencies were not thoroughly probed, critically

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examined and properly analyzed. Instead of doing that they were and are proudly credited and
promoted through promos for the same.
This development was very interesting for
foreign intelligence agencies and enemies of
Pakistan who had found an alleged soft
breaking-in propaganda opportunity through
these television channel employees to carry out
their psy-war missions and military operations
other than war with full confidence in and
around Pakistan.
These management teams intentionally or unintentionally, cleverly or innocently promoted the interests
of the foreign intelligence agencies and enemies of Pakistan taking refuge in government sponsored and
owned war against terror, ignorance, illiteracy and poverty of the people! And the Television Network
that proudly took the lead in doing all that was unfortunately, allegedly and unanimously condemned
Geo Television Network!
Knowing and working very closely with the
founder of the group and his two sons for years
I am stating with full responsibility that Mir
Shakil-ur-Rehman (MSR), has become victim of
the cleverness, stubbornness and adventurism
of the people he has gathered around him who
instead of behaving like employees of a highly
credible institution of global standing do not
only scornfully brush aside any positive suggestion from outside Geo, they do not bother about
the headaches they often gift to him every now and then by acting like Bruce Almighty. MSR himself has
created this environment of unusual employee defiance in his institution and consequently he has been
pushed into war path with the country’s most sensitive security agency and also the institution of the
armed forces without carefully weighing the nature of consequences and their fall out for two reasons:

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First of all, the reasons for attack on Hamid Mir needed proper investigation before passing any pre-
mature comment based on Hamid Mir’s conversations with family and friends. Did all those who blamed
the ISI chief for attack on Hamid Mir have any physical proof of his involvement in that attack? Was the
statement of Ansar Abbasi justified in
demanding ISI Chief’s resignation? I am
surprised that as Head of Investigative
Reporting in Jang Group he made such an
unpardonable blunder! Was it a reflection of
responsible journalism to point fingers at a
sensitive institution of the country and its chief
in a way Geo’s anchors and commentators had
done? That could have been an excusable
misjudgment. What about the aftermath?
The most condemnable threatening tone of Najam Sethi, in his program Aapas Ki Baat needs to be
discussed. In that program he has crossed all limits of decent and mature program anchoring by
threatening the armed forces and at the same time indulging in an obvious act of the contempt of court
forgetting that the constitutional rights of a privately owned company do not allow it to defame the
leadership of an extremely sensitive institution of country’s armed forces without a physical or
documentary evidence. His professional stupidity is self-evident from the nonsense that he had uttered
in his program pre-empting that “the court will
issue stern warning to the institution” that has
allegedly stopped the distribution of Geo
programs and newspapers on cables and
houses in cantonment areas. He did not
consider the conduct of the institution as an
employee of Geo Network he behaved as a
representative of those who had rewarded him for his great services to the cause of war against terror
first by recommending him to become the caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab and now the Chairman of
Pakistan Cricket Board. He forgets that there are people in Pakistan who are fully aware of his activities
and know very well from where the strings of his tongue are pulled. A review of his television

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appearances establishes beyond the slightest doubt that he is an outstanding hypocrite with no moral
and ethical values. This again can be convincingly proved with the help of clippings of his programs and
other documents too.
Recalling the lighter moments of my working
relationship with Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, I used
to taunt him by saying that he was fond of tying
his racing horses with the tails of unworthy
elephants. He had nothing to say in response to
that except lowering his head and smile. Najm
Sethi, Hamid Mir (by the way I, as fully
authorized founding Deputy Chief Executive of
daily Ausaf, had signed his appointment letter
as editor of the newspaper when the
newspaper he was working for was about to be
sold and he according to himself had proudly
shown that letter to Nazir Naji as a reason for
joining Ausaf), Kamran Khan, President of Geo
(designated so as a show piece) and many
more, I will not name now because they are not
working for Geo, are few of those elephants.
I just want to warn Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman that all great institutions were destroyed by the incompetent
and over-ambitious and over-empowered adventurers around the owners of those institutions. I am
seeing both him and his son surrounded by the most dangerous anti-institution employees posted on
senior management positions who are irresponsible, arrogant, egoist and unreasonably defiant! To my
surprise and utter disgust, I found him very comfortable in the company of idiots and stupid workers
who gladly passed on the credit for any nonsense that they did without his prior knowledge on his
behalf, to him. It is not that he did not patronize genuine professionals. He did that only when he was
stuck up in something he was

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unable to get rid or get out of. As soon as he did
that he not only got rid of the genuine
professionals, considering them a threat to his
personal stature and mountain high ego, he
through his department heads made sure that
those genuine professionals did not find job
anywhere else by discrediting and defaming
them. On the other hand he did everything to promote his hand-picked idiots and professionally
incompetent bosses at every platform taking advantage of Geo Network’s and Jang Group’s powerful
position in the country and even made them heads of those platforms for taking the credit for doing
that adding insult to the injury for intentionally hurting those who helped him stand where he stands
today as the top tycoon in the newspaper and broadcasting industry. In the process he and his hand-
picked management teams made a number of inexcusable blunders to the extent of ultimately turning
Geo into an alleged state-security-risk. This has never happened in the history of Jang Group before!
Geo, in the past, got away with every blunder
that his employees committed taking advantage
of the benefit of doubt and the professional
incompetence of the regulators and limitations
of the country’s sensitive institutions to stay
away from controversies within the country in
an environment of internationally known
victimization and agenda to make them
subservient to the interests of the foreign
intelligence agencies that are actively involved
in missions in and war around Pakistan for
Pakistan being the first and the last frontier in
the war against terror.
Where did Geo Network go wrong?

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First, Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, as the only owner-
in-command of the largest, most powerful and
influential media group in Pakistan, failed to
align his institutional priorities with the national
priorities after critically and thoroughly
analyzing the situation in and around Pakistan
for the known and unknown reasons without
getting influenced by those within and outside
his television network and newspapers
group who lack credibility, character and evidently have vested interests to support and promote
foreign agenda through Geo and Jang. Most of them have taken undue advantages and acquired
positions of privilege by pleasing the heads of different political parties, heads of foreign missions and
intelligence agencies shamelessly. And they were promoted for doing so by Geo Network too!
Second, Geo Network has the most
incompetent and unprofessional team of news
editors who are only qualified in presenting
cricket, use of Indian films and overlapping of
vulgar songs than serious news. Geo’s news
bulletin is unworthy of even a passing look!
Unfortunately, other TV channels also follow
Geo news to do as the leading channel does
even if what it does is wrong! One may safely
assume that one eyed Geo is the king of
repulsively irritating news contents!

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Third, the anchors of Geo have grown too big
for the shoes they wear. It is not only hurting
the credibility of Geo Network, now they
themselves have started paying the price of that
too. Hamid Mir is first of these anchors that
have crossed the professional limits to maintain
a balance between desire for unlimited fame
and national interest as well as respect for
country’s sensitive institutions. I am seeing
three others following Hamid Mir’s foot step
and they are Najm Sethi, Ansar Abbasi and
Kamran Khan.
Fourth, Geo’s Special Projects Team has approached foreign donors and different sensitive departments
of foreign missions in Pakistan for developing, producing, packaging and screening contents sponsored
by them for millions of dollars. Technically, this is a common media practice across the globe. Then why
is Geo blamed and condemned for something that everybody else does? Geo is blamed and condemned
for doing it in an unprofessional, unethical and
repulsive way due to the incompetence and
unprofessionalism of its content development
teams who though highly educated and
experienced enough on paper lacked skills in
understanding the historical, social, religious,
economic and professional sensitivities in
completing such a tricky assignment practically.
They ridiculed globally acclaimed historical
personalities of the subcontinent, they
attempted to distort the slogan behind
Pakistan Movement, they wrongly focused on a particular group of teachers and set of unusual practices
instead of thoroughly analyzing the overall education scenario, fundamental loopholes in the system,
negligence of the officials who are responsible to keep an eye on the functioning of the country’s
education system and on top of that miserably failed to carry out a social and economic sensitivity

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analysis of the reasons for the inability of the parents to enroll their children in schools. I hold the
officials of DFID equally and even more responsible for their inexcusable incompetence to approve the
funding of a project that was highly condemnable and damaging both for GEO and DFID.
Fifth, ignoring the country-wide overall negative
impact of and reaction to their first effort the
Special Projects Team of Geo approached
development wing of another foreign mission
with a proposal requesting them to sponsor a
series of programs, documentaries and even
news items for judicial reforms in Pakistan
without knowing that international donors had
already spent millions of American dollars for
the same a few years back! And the highlight of
this proposal was the use of Capital Talk, Aaj
Kamran Khan Kay Sath and even news bulletins!
Coming back to electronic media the owners of the television channels across the board in Pakistan,
with few exceptions, are totally oblivious of the sensitivities of the presentation of social and economic
disparities and overall professional incompetence seen almost in every walk of country’s life in a way
that brings positive change in individual and collective social behavior of the people. They are proudly
indulged in everything negative and taking credit for doing, in their judgment, everything positive
without knowing the difference between the positive and the negative and having the slightest idea of
their incompetence to develop contents for social reform.
What is the way out of this mess? The only way out of this mess is an unbiased technically foolproof
review of the career profiles and on and off-screen performance and activities of all persons holding
responsible positions in television channels and renewal of their clearance first by PEMRA and then civil
and military intelligence agencies of the armed forces in a fool proof manner. I know it will not be liked
by the owners and employees of the media but I even to my own disliking find no other option to
correct the situation. It is also true that the leading journalists of the local media and those who
represent foreign media in Pakistan go through intelligence scanning but I am fully aware of the
loopholes in the process which discards genuine professionals and clears some of the journalists, not all,
who create problems for Pakistan from security point of view. So blaming only the media is not enough

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for what they are doing. Intelligence agencies and PEMRA are also equally responsible for the mess the
media and the country are in to the extent of giving a clean chit to corrupt politicians, media owners,
anchors and journalists. This mistake has to be immediately corrected without fail!
More articles and presentations on the subject by the author: http://www.slideshare.net/19540201
Zahid Hussain Khalid has worked for national and international media
groups not as a journalist but a marketing practitioner, researcher and
analyst. He successfully initiated and completed the assigned managerial
and country tasks for such publications as Arab News, Financial Times, Jang
Group, Euromoney magazine, Petroleum Economist, South China Morning
Post, Asiamoney magazine, Innovation Management and Hong Kong
Standard and Forbes Inc, Forbes Global, Forbes Europe, Forbes Asia. He will
always remain thankful to Mr. William Adamapolous and Mr. Steve Forbes
of Forbes Inc and Mr. Tony Shale CEO, Euromoney Institutional Investor
Group (Jersey) Limited for their personal encouragement and support in
initiating and marketing Pakistan-specific innovative integrated media
packages for investment promotion. He also worked as Associate Producer,
Current Affairs, Pakistan Television Corp.
His articles have appeared in the Daily Jang, Daily Mashriq, the Nawa-e-Waqt and daily The Muslim on social, economic, political, diplomatic and military subjects
which are available here http://zahidhkhalid.wordpress.com/ and here http://www.slideshare.net/19540201
He had co-produced more than hundred episodes of the most popular weekly program “Hafta-e-Rafta” and was nominated for Best Producer’s award for
documentaries on Afghan Refugees and Year of the Aged.
His work reflects a visible difference because he strongly believes in innovative approach in everything that he does. He was co-owner of International Media Sales
from 1991 to 2012 and is owner of SUN&FZ Associates since 1994.