Target: Tolo TV

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Kabul-based Tolo TV has made a name for itself reporting independent news and putting on hugely popular entertainment shows. But in the last few months the network has itself become the news story. After no fewer than four extremist threats, a Taliban suicide bombing in January this year killed seven staff and injured nearly twenty more. So what is life like for those who remain? Yalda Hakim tells the story of Tolo’s precarious operation – condemned as lewd and immoral by religious extremists, and described as a legitimate military target.

In helping Afghans to challenge those in power, promoting women to top appointments, and even broadcasting popular western style entertainment shows, Tolo is helping to change Afghan society. It belongs to a growing media that are giving voice to the voiceless. But in the face of such ruthless enemies, staff are leaving for their own safety and even senior management admit that the channel might one day be forced to close.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a BBC podcast.
0:02.3	You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use
0:04.9	at BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. Suffering and destruction in Afghanistan.
0:15.0	Raw news footage shows the immediate aftermath of yet another suicide bombing.
0:25.0	Up to 160 such attacks take place every week.
0:30.0	Amid the blasted vehicles and the bodies of victims, a cameraman scrambles to report the scene.
0:37.0	Tolo TV, a carball-based news channel, faces this kind of danger every day.
0:45.2	I'm Yalda Hekeim and for this week's assignment here on the BBC World Service
0:50.0	I've come to the Afghan capital to spend time with them.
0:54.0	Tolo is known for its fearless reporting
0:56.4	and also for its hugely popular entertainment shows.
1:00.2	But in the last few months, it's become the new story itself.
1:04.0	I think that the Taliban targeting us was always going to be a question of time,
1:09.0	question of when I live.
1:12.0	I was working in very busy streets of Kabul. I can't do that anymore.
1:17.0	I was a target, like direct target. They would say, you know what, just we, they're going to attack
1:21.8	Ariana, they're going to kill on and stuff like that.
1:24.3	I do get scared, but at the same time channel covers all the protests, the suicide bombings.
1:35.0	This is Tolo TV at work.
1:41.0	The channel covers all the protests, the suicide bombings and even the softer things
1:46.5	that make up day-to-day life in Kabul.
1:48.5	Today the news isn't soft. It's a demonstration over the brutal lynching of
	...

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