Our elders deserve better than mockery
I have been watching this whole Syed Muhammad Ahmed and Fahad Sheikh episode play out for days now. Something about it will not leave my mind. Not the scandal part. Not the apology part. The part where an older actor finally said, enough, someone is treating me poorly, and I am not going to stay quiet about it.
That takes courage. Most people in his position and age would have swallowed the insult and moved on. He did not. He described how a younger colleague poked fun at his baldness, his height, his years in the profession, things that make him who he is. And when a federal minister stepped in and suggested a mentorship program so senior actors could guide the younger lot, I found myself nodding along. What a simple, decent idea.
But here is what really struck me. This same disease, and I do mean disease, is eating away at another profession I know far better than showbiz. I mean journalism.
I do not say this lightly. Every other day, I watch our own colleagues, people who work in the same profession as me, make fun of our elder journalists. Senior reporters who spent decades building this field, who broke stories when there was no social media to amplify them, who trained half the newsroom without ever asking for credit, these people now get mocked online. If a television channel calls someone a senior journalist, a certain crowd pounces immediately. They roll their eyes. They make jokes. They act as if age and experience are things to be embarrassed about, rather than things to be respected.
I want to be fair here. Every journalist has the right to hold an ideology. I believe that with my whole heart. Disagreement is healthy. A newsroom full of people who think alike produces boring, lazy journalism. I have no complaint against anyone who looks at the news differently than I do.
My complaint is about the tools some young journalists use to express that disagreement. Instead of writing a thoughtful counterargument, instead of picking apart an idea with facts and logic, they reach for personal insults. They mock a senior’s age. They mock his voice, his mannerisms, his old fashioned turns of phrase. This is not disagreement. This is low intellect wearing the mask of wit.
I have seen young reporters who cannot form three coherent sentences about a policy issue, yet they can produce an entire thread mocking a veteran’s appearance within minutes. That imbalance tells you everything. When you lack the words to counter an argument, you attack the person instead. It is the oldest trick in the book, and it is a lazy one.
Bushra Ansari said something in this whole controversy that stuck with me too. She said mistakes happen, tongues slip, and when someone apologises, we should accept it and move forward. I agree with her, mostly. Forgiveness matters. Nobody should lose their career over a single lapse in judgment. But forgiveness for a mistake is different from tolerating a pattern. If the mockery becomes routine, if senior professionals become an easy punchline every single week, then something in our culture needs fixing, not just the individual joke.
I keep thinking about Syed Muhammad Ahmed’s words. He said he stayed quiet before because he knew a phone camera could turn any reaction into a headline. That fear alone tells you how normal this kind of disrespect has become. He finally spoke, and people listened. Good.
I hope people in newsrooms find their own version of that moment soon. I hope young reporters learn to challenge ideas without demeaning the people who hold them. Our senior colleagues gave this profession its backbone. The least we owe them is an argument built on reason, not ridicule.
