It is not the first time that there has been talk of Pakistan jointly launching a new television channel with Malaysia and Turkey as the proposal was originally floated back in 2019 by Prime Minister Imran Khan during the 74th UNGA session. That it has been repeated again by Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry following the OIC Foreign Ministers summit held in Islamabad last weekend shows that there is movement on this ill-conceived notion that Islamophobia can be addressed via a TV channel. So far there are no details outlining the sort of content that will be produced and broadcasted on the channel to help it achieve its goal. However, it seems not much research has been done prior to the conception and announcement of the ‘three-nation channel’ to combat Islamophobia as the plan fails to incorporate one basic feature of this largely Western, especially European, problem, that it is a deep-rooted societal ill that does not respond well to propaganda-based programming. Alternatively, engaging in dialogue over the issue with the leadership and decision makers of the countries where it is most prevalent is a much more sound approach to address this widespread problem.
For Pakistan, a country that is going through a severe economic crisis and has to be very careful and picky about where it deploys its limited resources, investing in a new partially-owned TV channel may not be the most prudent strategy. Even if it is able to find this money, perhaps the most deserving of this investment would be our state-owned media, Pakistan Television (PTV), an inefficiently run outdated organization that has not produced anything of substance in decades. This money would certainly be a good start towards bringing back its former glory when in its heyday creativity and quality programming were its hallmark. However, to expect this from the PTI government would be asking too much as it has not even made good on its promise of transforming PTV into a truly independent state-owned channel, ‘comparable to the BBC’. Clearly there is a need to go back to the drawing board before wasting money on a project that is highly unlikely to achieve its primary objective.
