You must have seen them carrying bags, holding cameras, clutching numerous mobile phones and juggling with infinite number of wires around them.  You can surely recall a small group of people running after some dignitary, adjusting their apertures and posing in front of cameras in the backdrop of sticker stricken small vans parked nearby.  These guys are usually an ever mobile pair of a cameraman and the reporter.

They are the smallest team that a layman has become accustomed to seeing in recent years but there are many more stationed at their desks back in the office making the show run on TV or getting things published in the newspaper. These journalists are supposed to uphold the highest of the moral values and share nothing but the impartial truth with their viewers/readers. They symbolize strength and represent a group that won’t tolerate anything unjust, becoming the voice of the underdog.

Now we have to take a brief pause from this established narrative. These supposed epitomes of bravery are also subjected to a treatment that is inhuman and nerve-wrecking.  Something that is illegal, unethical and unlawful. The only difference is that there is no one out there who would like to report their misery. There won’t ever be a television relying their condition. There would never be any ‘seth’ who would spare a column to publish how financially exploited this faction of the society is. 

It was back in December 2008 that the television stations were compelled to allocate their very precious marketable moments to broadcast the saddest of the stories.  Muhammad Azam, a young, non-linear editor (who edits the video) committed suicide in the wee hours of the morning in Lahore. The details came later; he was working at an ill-reputed media house that had not paid him salary for five months.  Instead of getting paid after a heated argument with the management he was insulted, abused and thrown out of the office.  A man with skill and no money did not have the heart to relive the horror of his daily life and finished it by hanging himself.  

Had it been the story of one man, it would have diminished form our memories over time, but this is a tale of exploitation that goes on repeating itself every day, every month of each year, ever since this industry came into being. 

For some it won’t be less than a surprise that apart from a handful of media groups there is virtually no one who pays their workers in time – if they pay at all.

This has become an acceptable norm for mostly who work in this risky and laborious industry: not to think of the salary before ten days are already down and that too if you work in a ‘well reputed’ organization.  Before you ponder over ‘how do they live’ the answer is twisted and difficult to understand. For this unfortunate lot the only way is to keep pushing their exploiters for their salaries.  This obviously is not easy. 

These individuals deal not just with monetary issues but the daily dose of anxiety leaves them shaken and ill in many cases.  They do not have the option to go on roads, hold placards and chant against their employers because no broadcast time means no issue. They can yell their lungs out but won’t ever reach the public, since it is a monopolized world we live in.

They can go and change their profession. Easier said than done, but that is normally the only solution to their misery.  Secondly, if not all then most of the individuals that work in this industry are self-motivated and very passionate about their work.   This is not an overstatement but reflects the years-long troubles these people undertake to carve their niche in any specialized field of broadcast. They do live to remain silent for their rights when they are obliged to raise their voice for other under privileged and suppressed fellow countrymen.  

This narrative is not to prove that they are the best of the human beings – they all have their own share of shortcomings – but that they are human beings to say the least.

To work and not to be compensated in any decent manner is beyond basic human rights violation.  The bondage needs to end, but since it is not on television or in the newspaper, it is not happening. And since no seth would ever spend his own money over defaming himself, the injustice might go on forever.