The names Babar Azam and Zaka Ashraf have been all over the news throughout the world for days now because to events in KARACHI. For publicly criticizing his failing side in the middle of the competition, the current PCB chairman has come under tremendous scrutiny from the global media and cricket experts.
Meanwhile, Babar Azam, the captain of the Pakistani team, has become more famous for a snapshot than for his lackluster play.
Their fame, like so much else in Pakistan, is mostly due to vain demonstrations of self-importance rather than any true skill at the game. The others are trying to boost the live feed while one person has a prominent position.
Most people on the street would agree with the statement’s authors that Ashraf and his colleagues were careless and thoughtless in issuing it, and that they would have been better off keeping their comments to themselves.
One would reasonably wonder why a sports board’s chairman would publicly criticize a faltering team’s captain and management. The situation is not dissimilar from when political parties join forces to bring down a government that has only a year and a half left in office due to poor leadership.
Both of these nightmare scenarios have, unfortunately, come true within the past two years. Patience seems to be in short supply, and alas, there’s no vaccine for a lack of foresight. If not, many people in high-ranking positions in Pakistan’s government, including Zaka Ashraf, could use a little immunity to nonsense.
A well-known anchor, who is also good at selling expensive fragrances and asking seemingly innocent queries, is equally resistant to common sense and numb to basic journalistic norms. To emphasize their case, he and his reporters leaked a screenshot of a phone call between the Pakistani cricket team’s captain and the PCB’s media manager.
Even if it were morally reprehensible to broadcast a private discussion without permission, the assertions by experienced batsman Rashid Latif that the chairman was not returning Azam’s calls were pretty much the only thing of note in the talk.
Even though Azam had never made such assertions, the chairman hastily made a TV appearance and sent the screenshot to a network that aired it in prime time without checking its accuracy.
Ashraf’s juvenile behavior, like that of all presidents destined to rule for a fortnight, converted Pakistan cricket into a circus, with Ashraf as the primary performer.
One might not have expected Zaka to refrain from being even more toxic after the statement released by PCB earlier. However, the journalists could have exercised better judgment. The bad news is that they didn’t. The anchor apologized, saying they were hesitant to air the screenshot at first, but after getting Ashraf’s approval, they went ahead and aired it.
When did you last hear something like that in the news? Where in the globe do one-sided permission releases of private text messages occur? Do chairmen anywhere in the world use television to sway their
You don’t need Scooby-Doo or Sherlock Holmes to figure out the answers to these puzzles.
Somehow, ‘intellectuals’ in charge of our media outlets have managed to display the dirtiest parts of our collective psyche and the most egregious social inconsistencies as if they were pieces of objective, exclusive journalism.
Prior victims of similar disclosures have committed suicide as a result of the humiliation and debasement they experienced at the hands of their tormentors. The anguish in these cases is not just embarrassment; it is also the confusion that comes with having your privacy violated publicly and having many “what-ifs” pile up in your head.
It’s not always a scandal when something is released, and not every leak is a scandal. But this whole show, from the first statement to the distribution of the screenshot, seems designed to make the captain, the team, and its management look petty and inconsequential.
Not very long ago, we tried to make international celebrities out of this very team by praising them extensively on social media and by boosting their public profile. The same board only needed one bad tournament to start treating them like garbage.
This entire event is not an isolated incident.
Our nation has surrendered its critical thinking to the continual din of media and culture as its citizens subsist on the scraps provided by others and hope that the following election would miraculously improve their lot in life. The only time you hear this is when the battery dies.
Our cultural multiplier keeps spinning, fueled by ‘investigative’ instruments such as stolen recordings and incriminating screen grabs. Ironically, these tactics are seldom utilized as strongly against powerful institutions as they are against vulnerable individuals.
Whether it’s a religious story or a sports one, the current trend of using screenshots or leaked data to back up a claim on national television allows anchors to normalize public moral criticism while projecting a more virtuous image with each passing season.
As we keep discovering new topics of conversation, they keep revealing private details about one of us. Stop using the generator and start using renewable energy instead.
