Dawn has significantly covered the interim report of the government set up committee to investigate the rumors that began on Thursday, 14^th October, 2010 that made the judiciary go hay wire and become extremely insecure. Jang and The News have ignored the report only quoting The Highly Honorable Mr. Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday’s question as to where is the war between the government and the judiciary!  Dawn has covered the Interim Report as part on their headline on front page titled “Storm in the judicial teacup”. It seems that Fakhar Rehman will be made a scapegoat in all this matter, but my question is where do the likes of Kamran Khan and Ansar Abbasi who have been confirming such reports as well Ahmed Owais, who has alleged that Dogar was being reinstated and Akram Sheikh, who has said that the orders had been signed, will be hauled up in court and explain their sources? Shahid Masood was asked by Matiullah Jan on Dawn News whether he would resign as ARY’s President if he was unable to verify his sources? He was shamelessly saying that “Iss tarah nahee hota!”. Wah Dr. Saab wah!!!

INTERIM REPORT: In its interim report, the committee conceded that journalistic norms were not being universally observed by media people while reporting on major national issues.

“There exists a tendency of reporting on sensitive subjects based on a single source contrary to international norms that advocate the confirmation of such news from multiple sources. The breaking news about the withdrawal of executive order was telecast without apparently establishing any contact and or verification procedure with the alleged offender i.e. the government,” it said, adding: “In the ‘ongoing standoff between the executive and the judiciary’, media is playing both a positive and negative role.” The report said it realised that journalists were very sensitive about their sources of information. The committee has not identified the existence of visible source(s) in the government or the judiciary which may have provided the relevant media persons such information.

It said that the initial breaking news that caused panic, sensation and anguish was telecast on Aaj News by its reporter Fakhar Rehman on Oct 14 at 2145 hours that a decision had been taken by the government to withdraw the executive order while mentioning that government sources had provided the information. However, the committee could not find any evidence in support of this proposition.

It went on to say that several other channels also repeated this breaking news of Aaj TV without quoting any source and also discussed the issue in their programmes.

In order to find the facts, the committee called Aaj TV Director Wamiq Zuberi and the reporter, but both were not available. However, they had committed to appearing before the committee on Monday at 1100 hours in Karachi.

The committee has also requested Editor News Mohammad Malick, President of ARY TV Dr Shahid Masood, Hamid Mir of Geo TV or any other media person to appear before it.

Comments

comments