Thank you, Malik Riaz, for revealing names of for-sale anchors and columnists
For the last four years, LUBP and various sister blogs (Pakistan Blogzine, Al Ufaq, Ahmadiyya Times, Khyber Watch, Baloch blogs etc) have been trying to educate Pakistan’s middle class that majority of journalists and anchors in mainstream media (both Urdu and English press, both right-wing and (pseudo)liberal class) are sell outs who remain subservient to agendas and discourses of Pakistan’s military establishment and its loyalist media conglomerates.
Through this brief post, we want to thank the real estate tycoon Malik Riaz for making our job much easier with ample direct and circumstantial evidence.
A complete list of 19 anchors and columnists on Malik Riaz’s payroll has been published by Aaj TV:
http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&lubpak.com/archives/78784
Hats off to you, Malik sahib!
Source: Facebook
I heard from Marvi Sirmed that LUBP is playing on establishment’s pitch. She has a point.
yeah..i know all are chips of same block.
To Marvi Sirmed:
What do you think madam, we should garland Iftikhar Chaudhry for his biased attitude. He has been trying to cast away all the leadership of three smaller provinces and those in Punjab that are on PPP board. He was playing hunting game with judiciary arsenal. But, politicians are politicians, they can play this game much better than him. It is payback time.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less about who is behind what in some quarters is being called a ‘conspiracy’ to defame the chief justice of the Supreme Court, nor do I have any love lost for the shady cast of characters which includes Malik Riaz and the son of the aforementioned chief justice.
Neither have I been moved, in the way that so many of our media anchors, professional armchair critics and writers have, by the various moralistic campaigns for ‘justice’ that have preceded the latest bombshell, whether they have sought to uncover the anti-state designs of ambassadors or establish the contemptuous defiance of chief executives.
In the final analysis none of these sensational court cases and the media circus that has surrounded them have provided relief to the wretched of this land, who continue to experience the trials and tribulations of courts, police stations and capitalist markets on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, all the exhortations of national pride cannot hide the reality that the Pakistani state — sovereign in name alone — is still subject to Washington’s political and military man-management, Riyadh’s cultural hegemony and China’s ever-expanding economic empire.
The brutal truth is that the public discourse in (urban) Pakistan has been reduced to a series of circular debates about the need to rally behind the Supreme Court in its attempts to bring the politicos to justice.
The ranting and raving has become so impassioned that much of the educated middle class has actually become convinced that all of Pakistan’s problems do indeed boil down to banishing ‘corruption’ from our midst.
I cannot help but wonder what proportion of this middle class either owns, or harbours hopes of owning, a home in Bahria Town or Defence Housing Authority.
Given what the world now knows about how these and other similar pristine housing societies come into being, who benefits from them and the wider social and environmental costs they cause, would the claim that the middle classes who live in these suburban colonies are directly or indirectly involved in corruption be so outrageous?
What of the middle-class practice of sending a munshi, driver or domestic servant to pay off the fixer at the katcheri when the car licence needs to be renewed? Or the muk-mukau with the local assistant sub-inspector when the kids are caught indulging in decidedly ‘un-Islamic’ acts on a Saturday night out?
None of Pakistan’s property tycoons and the state functionaries on their payroll will soon be expelled from high society, no matter what happens over the next few weeks. Neither will Pakistan’s opaque structure of power — which includes generals, bureaucrats, politicians, mullahs, merchants, landlords, media moguls and judges — be decisively exposed, let alone overhauled. But the moralising, on all sides of the many divides that are being erected, can be expected to continue.
This is a society characterised by a democratic deficit and deeply embedded structures of exploitation, yet in which the makers of public opinion and judicial functionaries prefer to give sermons rather than identify the real causes of societal ills.
As much as anyone else I am inclined to argue that the dark legacy of Islamisation explains everything, but this would be to ignore the fact that a good two and a half decades have passed since the dictator’s demise.
It is high time we all wake up to the banal fact that the failings of easy-to-hate politicians are society’s failings, and that a holier-than-thou attitude compounds rather than alleviates these failings.
The absurd needs to give way to a more sober and honest appraisal of the morass in which we are floundering and our own roles in reproducing it. Only then can we start the long and hard task of envisioning and constructing a politics which is not of The Prince, by The Prince and for The Prince.
http://dawn.com/2012/06/15/morality-of-the-absurd/
I don’t know why LUBP is wasting so much time on fake list prepared by PTI .
Firstly , Its hard to believe every journo is on malik riaz payroll . Secondly , one can easily to dismiss this list since most of these journo never advocated malik raiz cause .
Sohail Warraich is on malik riaz payroll just because he did aik din geo ka saath with him ?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=459999867362943&set=a.377122345650696.101159.377113562318241&type=1&theater
Shafiq Ahmed @Shafique110
Abdul Qadir Gilani denies hand in tv show controversy
Abdul Samad @abdulsamd
Marvi Sirmed denies she was paid by Riaz Malik
——
You promote Ejaz Haider, Hamid Mir, Raza Rumi, Najam Sethi, Jinnah Institute and then claim you are innocent? Good for you!
That you are a fan of Najam Sethi is enough for us to doubt your integrity or/and intellect.
Will Marvi Sirmed care to reveal if she received any payments or perks from ISI-sponsored Jinnah Institute in the last one year?
Marvi Sirmed argues she is not a journalist. This also explains why she was allegedly paid only one million rupees (a paltry amount).
#NajamSethi’s article is full of criticism of CJP, not a single word against Malik Riaz. Shabash Namak Halal http://t.co/ZjSUNt5L
Appeal to concerned Pakistanis working at banks
MCB, NATIONAL BANK, HABIB BANK, NICB, UBL OR THE ROUTING BANKS.
Please provide us with the counter proofs. This is time for citizen journalism to build a corruption free Pakistan.
Despite vehement denials by those implicated in the Media Gate, the Bahria Gate list of journalists is not fake.
I am writing this brief post to confirm that the list of payments to journalist by the real estate tycoon Malik Riaz (of Bahria Town) is real. This has been personally confirmed to me by a former senior executive of Bahria Town, who is a personal friend for the last 15 years.
At this stage, what is needed is verification from Banks. We need contacts in Banks, e.g., MCB, HBL and National Bank etc
Through this brief post we invite /solicit / request further information / verification about these bank accounts and transactions.
If you are a journalist, blogger, activist, banker, a concerned citizen, we request you to obtain and provide further information.
Our only aim is to fully expose the black sheep in the media community who have brought bad name to the profession of journalism in Pakistan.
http://pakistanblogzine.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/media-gate-appeal-to-concerned-pakistanis-working-at-banks-by-banda-e-khuda/
From Twitter:
Why would PTI release a fake list which exposes its own spokespersons eg Mubashir Lucman and other establishment touts?
Clearly, those journalists who are allegedly exposed in the Bahria Gate list are blaming “PTI trolls” as a convenient cover up. Not fair!
According to insider information that we have, “the list” cannot be out-rightly rejected. #MediaGate
You promote Ejaz Haider, Hamid Mir, Raza Rumi, Najam Sethi, Jinnah Institute and then claim you are innocent? Good for you!
That you are a fan of Najam Sethi is enough for us to doubt your integrity or/and intellect.
Do criticize Meher Bokhari on deference to Malik Riaz. But why spare Najam Sethi when he does the same in a rather refined manner?
#NajamSethi’s article is full of criticism of CJP, not a single word against Malik Riaz. Shabash Namak Halal http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20120615&page=1 #MediaGate
It’s a pity that people such as Saroop Ijaz criticize Meher’s deference to Malik Riaz but look the other way when Sethi does the same.
Pakistan’s media and social media is full of intellectually or/and morally compromised. Alas!
Awab Alvi @DrAwab
With @ShahidMasoodDr claiming that Baharia list was “Planted by media guy” WHO will apologize to me & PTI? prob no one
Cafe Pyala @cpyala
Fake journos-on-take list was spread by PTI supporter accord to @javeednusrat
Dr Shahid Masood @Shahidmasooddr
Sir, A media guy prepared n put other names to clean himself. He’s a Malik Riaz buddy. PTI wasn;t involved. Pl recheck.Rgds @javeednusrat
Arshad Sharif @arsched
PTI official: “the document (fake list of journalists on BT letterhead) was 1st released by ProPakistani web page. not done by Awab.”
Naeem Shamim @naeemshamim
PTI has released a fake list , well the ISI should release the real one then ! #Pakistan
15 Jun Laibaah @Laibaah1
@naeemshamim PTI is a sub-organization of ISI. Seen from that angle, the list has come from a credible source (from the horse’s mouth).
Facts That Nusrat Saheb Missed!!
Posted on June 15, 2012
Its rarely a dull day in Pakistan these days. Apart from Pakistan,I don’t think there is another country in this world right now where there is so much activity and conspiracies going around . Every week we have a new scandal breaking through the media and the audience being bored of the previous week’s event starts to follow the latest event forgetting the last one completely as if nothing had happened. A country where current affairs programs have a better rating than dramas shows how much the society has become politicized and secondly how much the quality of our dramas have gone down lately.
The recent scandal involving Malik Riaz and Dr Arsalan ,son of our honorable chief justice is nothing less than a super hit suspense series for the media and its audience. Every evening from 7 to 11 we have at least 30 talk shows discussing this same story with everybody having his own say on the matter. In the course of the events that happened after the appearance of this story, media persons themselves have also become the subject and now questions are being raised on media from many circles. Without going into the details of speculations about media people, I’ll say that all of these media personals should be treated as fair guys unless someone is proven guilty. However at the same time it’s the duty of these media anchors that they should also start taking responsibility of their actions and try their best to leave their personal bias out of their professional duties.
A list of journalists is in circulation over social media for more than a week now where there are names of at least 19 journalists who have allegedly received favors from Malik Riaz.. Today Nusrat Javed and Mushtaq Minhas of Bolta Pakistan on Aaj TV did a program on this topic and surprisingly blamed PTI Supporters of coming up with this list and blamed them of spreading it on social media. Following is the link where Nusrat Javed cameup with this allegation
Now let me tell the original facts concerning this alleged list and how Nusrat Saheb missed some very important facts
On 7th June 2012 ,a fake account on the name of Aitzaz Ahsan shared this list on his twitter account saying that he doesn’t know if its authentic or not but wouldn’t be surprised at all if its true.
Here are those tweets:
Tweets Done in the name of Aitzaz
The following is the link that is mentioned in above tweet:
Some more tweets from the same account that were done yesterday on 13th june 2012 after which the user suspended his account on 14th June 2012:
The problem with cyber space is that nobody knows if the account on twitter or face book is a genuine one or a fake one so people started sharing it probably thinking that its coming from Aitzaz Ahsan.. Now we can never know who was behind this alleged list but one thing is for sure that probably it wasn’t some PTI supporter who did it as it had also the name of Hassan Nisar in it who has been lately very supportive of the PTI‘s struggle.
Today that list was again shared on various social media sites but this time using some kind of Baharia Letter Heads. Now Mr Nusrat Javed has every right to be disturbed about his name appearing in this alleged list and surely he has every reason to be angry with the people who has wrongly put an allegation on him.However Nusrat’s reaction to it was certainly beyond my understanding as he wrongly accused PTI supporters for spreading this on their facebook pages and used some real harsh words on Live TV for them.
Here are again a few facts that will tell you that this list was never published by any of the official pages of PTI…On the other hand it was shared by many other forums including AAJ TV’s official website where Nusrat Javed himself works.Following are Just few examples:
On AAJ TV Website
http://www.aaj.tv/2012/06/a-list-of-19-journalists-allegedly-bribed-by-malik-riaz/
On a PML-N Foum “We love PML-N,Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif”
On Azizi Of Dunya Tv forum:
On Jaago Pakistan forum:
On Electronic Media this list was discussed by some journalists too so there is no point of Nusrat Saheb blaming it on PTI that they are the ones who are spreading this unauthenticated list.Have a look at the following clip where Faisal Shakil of Express is discussing the list too.
Similarly Khawaja Asif in todays Capital talkalso mentioned about the list and Hamid Mir claimed that Mazhar Abbas of PFUJ will go in court against Bahria Town for issuing this list on their letter head.Now this claim is a total contradiction of your view point that these are not Bahria Town pads.I honestly dont know which one of you or Hamid Mir is right but what i do know is that you blaming it on PTI supporters is quite laughable to say the least.
The list had Dr Shahid Masood’s name on it too and like Nusrat he must have found this allegation insulting too.However instead of blaming it onto anyone innocent,he investigated into the matter and found that Bahria Town itself was behind this.He also clearly said that PTI supporters has NOTHING to do with this list and they have no part to play in this.Here are the updates from his page.
Dr Shahid Masood also tweets to Nusrat Javed Saheb telling him that there is nothing to blame it on PTI supporters and Bahria ppl were the one behind this.
The whole point of telling these facts was that where I had always criticized PTI supporters of losing their temper with Nusrat Saheb on him calling IK as ‘AdolfK”,Nusrat Javed should also keep in mind that fair analysis is a must for a good journalist . Also Nusrat Saheb should consider for a moment that does it suit someone of his stature to keep calling IK as Adolf Khan ? Can he call Nawaz or Zardari with such names or does freedom of media only applies to IK?
http://arslank.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/facts-that-nusrat-saheb-missed/
The Lordship is angry that a TV Channel played a drama of interview with Malik Riaz and tried to defame The Judiciary. The SCP took SUO MOTO on the issue. Will an inquiry be made to unearth the conspiracy of airing an old interview of the same person (EK DIN GEO KAY SAATH) in which Mrs. Malik calls Malik a liar. This interview was repeat telecast in the midst of Arsalan-Malik case.