Artesia

Its hard digesting the style of delivery and choice of words for the main news program. Mostly its delivered in a very accusatory tone and in highly dramatized fashion. To make it an 'Urdu' broadcast, an unorthodox vocabulary is chosen (something I guess was learned from the recently visible forced 'hindi' influence in Indian media, specially sports reporting). Occasionally, the news reports are not entirely correct, which leads one to believe that GEO internally maintains a policy of 'report first, verify later'.

For example, I closely followed the foiled terrorist attack on the Islamabad airport earlier this year and GEO changed their account of events three times. The most incorrect version was one in which they reported the killing of one security guard and even released his name. This was later retracted quietly and replaced with the news item that he in fact had been shot in the leg.

Just an example of how difficult it becomes to judge the fine balance between correct reporting and breaking a story before anyone else does. Its very dangerous in light of currently prevailing circumstances in the country, not to mention potentially harmful to the families of those involved in these reported incidents. Such mistakes take away the serious authenticity of the channel on the whole and reduces its level somewhat to that of an irritating, intruding, gossiping neighbor living on your street.

And whats the deal with this guy Kamran Khan who features in the self titled program "Kamran Khan ke Saath"? During the initial days of the Chief Justice crisis in Islamabad, there was an attack on the GEO office by the police. The proceedings were on-air live with Kamran Khan just babbling on and shouting incoherently in the foreground. At one point he was online with the Islamabad bureau chief and "visibly" more disturbed about the situation than the people in the Islamabad station themselves.

It felt too dramatic and just unnecessary, and in my opinion an over-kill. If you have ever had the experience of listening to commentary on both radio and TV for the a sporting event, you will notice that the radio presenters have to do alot more by being dramatically vocal and descriptive to sketch the whole scene for their audience.

It seems news presenters on GEO are radio commentators sitting in for a TV broadcast. If the audience can actually SEE an event, it isn't necessary anymore to repeatedly describe every moment in an emotionally charged (over pitched) voice at the same time. Specially in the absence of a good script or well versed presenters.

I don't mean to be overly harsh in my criticism but being the premiere news broadcasting channel in the country puts a major responsibility on GEO for quality of delivered content. Our people are very sensitive and emotional about current affairs and over stimulation in the fashion of dramatic and provocative journalism is unprofessional.