Rant of the Day

I have to admit I'm not particularly fond of PPP Senator Faisal Raza Abidi's appearances on television. But that's just because, my ears having been bled from the apparent dominant paradigm of anchors and participants on Pakistani television talk shows, I have a general aversion to over-emotional and LOUD grandstanding. And nobody gets more emotional and louder than Senator Abidi.

However, this typically cataclysmic rant from him on Aaj TV's Aaj Ki Khabar programme on March 17th (which one missed partly because the England - West Indies thriller was on the same night and partly because one doesn't normally bother with Aaj in any case) deserves to be heard. To be fair, he only let loose after the other participants (including the host Absar Alam, Khalifa-ul-Waqt Ansar Abbasi, Justice (retd) Tariq Mahmood, PMLN's Pervez Rashid and Jamaat-e-Islami's cretinous Fareed Paracha) all pointed fingers at the federal government for either letting 'Raymond Davis' go or lying about it.

But more importantly, if you can look beyond the political grandstanding and the ear-splitting volume of Abidi's splenetic fury (I'll admit it'll take some doing), he also makes some rather pointed and valid arguments against those casting the 'Raymond Davis' issue as one of national honour and 'ghairat' as well as the silent sympathisers of extremism and the opportunistic judicial system.





Yeah, so what indeed about the 23,000 plus Pakistanis killed by the Pakistani Taliban? But if you thought this could coax some soul-searching from apologists for extremism such as Fareed Paracha, you'd be sadly mistaken. Paracha subsequently responded that by letting 'Davis' go, the government had blocked people from collaring the people who are actually behind terrorism in Pakistan (i.e. it was 'Davis' and his Blackwater cohorts, it's never the Taliban and their ilk). As I said, cretinous.

You Can Plug A Leak, But Can You Plug A Plant? (Updated)

Thanks to Nadeem Farooq Paracha's blog in Dawn, we have the first acknowledgement from a Pakistani news organization about our role in exposing the fake Wikileaks (FakiLeaks?) story carried by many publications in the country.

As of this writing, The News and the Express Tribune have both published retractions, though the far more widely circulated Jang and the Majeed Nizami mouthpieces, The Nation and Nawai Waqt have not (The Nation even went ahead and wrote an editorial basing itself on the Fakileaks, which has now been altered by apparently Indian hackers.) I am not sure if the Urdu daily Express and the Business Recorder, which also published the stories, have published retractions.

 A screen grab of the apparently hacked The Nation editorial

Of the television channels, I am also not sure if Dunya TV, which carried news reports based on the same planted stories, issued an apology. But even more dismally, long after the alleged cables were exposed as fake, Absar Alam on his evening programme on Aaj TV on Thursday, based his entire programme on the fake cables. Among the participants of his programme: General (retd) Hamid Gul, who insisted that Indian generals were indeed of the same character that the (fake) cables described them as, and Geo anchor Hamid Mir, who commented on how the Kashmir-related portions of that story indicated Kashmir would "inshallah" be one day free. At one point, Absar Alam even thanked God that the American diplomats had not used the same kind of language for Pakistani generals. Sigh. Only goes to show you how much research goes into these 'talk shows.'

But coming back to the retractions and apologies, the most hilarious part of the entire episode is the 'defence' issued by Online wire agency, which The News the Jang Group has blamed for the entire episode. We reproduce here the full 'clarification' sent to news organizations by Online:

"Editors/News editors

CLARIFICATION

On Dec 9th 2010 a news item attributed to our organization was published in some English Newspapers and Urdu Papers with regards to WikiLeaks disclosures regarding Indian Interference in Balochistan and Waziristan, Indian army and Israel. We had lifted this news by searching various search engines as part of regular scanning  process for finding news about WikiLeaks disclosures, which has become a hot topic of every newspaper.

On Dec 10 some of English and Urdu newspapers had criticized us of the report not being accurate and some of them even went to the extent of accusing us of wrong use of WikiLeaks documents for propaganda purposesand we had released a planted news item. While the truth is just the opposite if anyone goes on Goggle and writes: Wikileaks Leak About India, Israel And Afghanistan one would be able to get the same news we got. We are also attaching the news which we downloaded from the Internet so that the matter is clarified. One more thing we like to mention is that we had not received any notice or written compliant from WikiLeaks spokesman.

The only mistake on our part was that we had not mentioned the link or source of the news for which we apologies. I hope you would publish our point of view as well in your esteemed newspapers.

Thanks

Siddique Sajid

Editor
Online Int'l News Network"

This 'clarification' does clarify many things about Online. The first and foremost conclusion that news organizations should draw from it is to run as far away from this wire agency as they can. This is how they gather their news??? By "lifting" (their words) stuff from Google???

The defence that "if anyone goes on Goggle [sic] and writes: Wikileaks Leaks About India, Israel and Afghanisan" one would be able to get the same news we got" would be uproariously funny were it not simultaneously so appalling. That's your defence Online??? So tomorrow, if you go on the net and search for "Conspiracy Theories About Moon Landing Being Fake", you would pass that along to news organizations as valid news? Second point: why exactly then do news organizations need you? I mean all they need to do to get their 'news' is Google (or Goggle, if that's your thing), right?

Of course none of this takes away from the news organizations' own responsibilities to verify stories they take on. Are we to gather from this that the news sense of the staff at these papers and channels has deteriorated to such an extent that NONE of them saw anything remotely strange about the story?

The News has announced that it will not pay Online its subscription for the month as punishment for making it into a laughing stock. Whoop de whoop. The 'clarification' of Online, one would have thought, should have been reason enough to immediately terminate any relationship.



: : : UPDATES and CORRECTIONS : : :

Jang did in fact run a retraction at the same time as The News, and also ran a follow-up about its notice to Online today. The retraction was on the front page and the follow-up on the back page, nowhere as prominent as the original stories, but still. Our apologies to Jang for missing the items and misstating its position.

Also, Omar R. Qureshi in his blog in Express Tribune on December 9 did in fact mention Cafe Pyala as having commented on the story, though he did not exactly acknowledge the fact that we were the first within Pakistan and abroad to actually raise the issue of  the fake cables.

According to this blog, the editor of Online, Siddique Sajid (who wrote the above letter to news organizations), has resigned over the affair. We do not have independent confirmation of this.



: : : 2ND UPDATE : : :

The following is the text of the notice published by Online about the sacking of its editor:

Online Editor Sacked

 

Decision made after Editor found solely responsible for making a fabricated story.

 

December 11, 2010 Islamabad

 

"The enquiry was ordered and led by Mohsin J Baig, the Editor-in-Chief of Online, soon upon his return from Turkey, where he had accompanied Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani during his official visit there.

 

The decision to sack Mr. Siddique Sajid was made after it was established in the enquiry that he had ‘solely misused’ his editorial authority in the absence of the news agency’s Editor-in-Chief by ‘fabricating a false story’ on a highly sensitive subject such as the WikiLeaks’ disclosure.

 

The Online Management regrets the release of the said story by Online, its subsequent publication by media, and the consequent erosion of their public credibility. It assures the subscribers and readers of the news service that stringent measures are being adopted to prevent vested interests from planting such fabricated stories.

 

The Online International News Network is Pakistan’s largest news agency, with well over a decade long track-record of fair and balanced reporting, both news and photos, from Pakistan, the region and across the world.

 

‘We shall continue to perform this useful role in a responsible way as we have always done,’ said Mohsin J Baig, the Editor-in-Chief.

 

’I know the difficulty of reporting in a place laced with vested interests operating clandestinely, but reporting on currently the most volatile subject in global media and, that also, without corroborating the story’s contents with factual documents is unacceptable,’ Mr. Baig added, while justifying the sacking of the Editor Online."

Panic at Dunya?

So here's some news circulating on the journalists' mailing group regarding Dunya TV's former Director News Absar Alam's case against the Dunya TV management for the recovery of monies allegedly due to him and not yet paid by his former employers.

I haven't been able to verify this information, which seems to be taken from some unnamed news report, but it sounds too remarkable to be made up. Thought I would share it - pretty much as is - with these caveats...

SC lawyer terms judicial policy “bull shit”

Mian Amer, YBM’s lawyer terms judicial policy “bull shit”

Accuses the court of “unholy haste”, challenges to file contempt of court case against him

"LAHORE--April 02:--A Supreme Court lawyer lost his temper Friday in the civil court of Judge Khizer Hayat Minhas, shouted at him, used foul language against the judiciary, termed the National Judicial Policy, envisaged by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, as “bull shit”, demanded the court to slow down the dispensation of justice process and dared the judge to file a contempt of court case against him for using harsh language.

An indecent replay of Faisalabad civil court incident was averted here on Friday morning when the Senior Civil Judge, Khizer Hayat Minhas, kept his grace and cool and let the lawyer, Mian Zafar Iqbal Klanori, out his frustration and anger at him. On the repeated insistence of the lawyer the judge then put everything on record, in writing, what the lawyer had shouted in the court.

The lawyer of the defendant exploded in the court in anger when he realized that an important witness from the UK has been produced by the plaintiff in the court which was unwilling to buy the delaying tactics of the defendant.

Because of the insults hurled at him by the Supreme Court lawyer, the Judge was left with no other option but to refer the case back to the District Judge, Zawar Ahmed, to transfer the case to another judge. The District Judge would decide to transfer the case on Saturday morning. Saad Rasool, the lawyer of the plaintiff, will appear before the District Judge.

The case has been filed by ex-Director News Dunya News TV, Absar Alam, against former Nazim Lahore and CEO of Dunya News, Mian Amer Mahmood and MD Dunya News, Yousaf Baig Mirza for the recovery of his lawful dues.

Mian Zafar Iqbal, the lawyer of Mian Amer Mahmood and Yousaf Beg Mirza, panicked when he found that an important witness, another ex-Director News of Dunya News, Aamir Ghauri, had arrived in the court from the UK to give his testimony in this case."

If true, does this mean that Dunya TV management is feeling the pinch? Do recall that Alam is asking for 77 lakhs in outstanding dues.


: : : UPDATE : : :

This recently in (also uncredited) on the journalists' forum:

Application against Dunya News lawyer sent to CJ

"After the unfortunate incident of terming the judicial policy as "bullshit" on Friday in the court of Civil Judge Khizer Hayat Minhas, by Dunya News lawyer, Mian Zafar Iqbal Kalanauri, the District and Session Judge Lahore, Zawar Ahmed, sent the case against Mian Amer and Yousaf Baig Mirza to Civil Judge Rafaqat Ali Qamar.

Monday, April 5th, has been set the next hearing date.

Earlier, the Session Judge called the lawyers of both sides in his chamber to discuss the complaint of Civil Judge Khizer Hayat who had sent the case to District Judge Zawar Ahmed after Dunya News lawyer realising that an important witness had arrived in the court from the UK, panicked, shouted at the judge and accused him of "unholy haste."

He also termed Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar ahmed's National Judicial Policy, aimed at ensuring speedy dispensation of justice to all, as "bullshit".

The case against Mian Amer, ex-nazim Lahore and CEO of Dunya News, and Yousaf Beg Mirza Managing Director Dunya News, has been filed by ex-Director News and senior journalist Absar Alam. 

Mian Amer and YBM, despite repeated reminders, had failed to clear Absar Alam's lawful dues for the last one year. Hence the ex-Director News sued Mian Amer and YBM for reneging on their legal, financial obligations and violation of the written contract.

Another ex-Director News, Aamir Ghauri, has traveled from the UK to stand in the witness box confirming the unprofessional handling of working journalists by Dunya News management.

In a strange coincidence, the plaintiff, Absar Alam, and his lawyer, Saad Rasool, have started receiving threatening emails and phone calls since the case proceedings started.

The plaintiff has asked the federal and provincial governments, Chief Justice Supreme Court of Pakistan, Chief Justice Lahore High Court, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Rawalpindi/Islamabad Union of Journalists, National Press Club, all representative bodies of journalists to take note of these threats and harassment of a senior journalist and his lawyer.

The issue has been brought to the notice of Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, and Chief Justice Lahore High Court Khawaja Sharif with an appeal to take it up in accordance with the law.

Federal and Punjab governments have also been asked to provide security to the plaintiff, his lawyer and the witnesses as the number of threatening emails is on the rise.

An FIR was lodged with the FIA about these threatening and defaming emails. The FIA is investigating this matter."

Now phone and email threats?! Who says the media is not a mafia!

Dunya TV Now In A Proper Court

I had been wondering recently whatever happened to that Maheen Usmani case against Yousuf Baig Mirza (YBM) over at Dunya TV. Things had been awfully quiet for a long time. And lo and behold, here comes some tangential news.

It seems that former Director News Absar Alam has filed a case in court against Dunya TV Chairman Mian Aamir Mahmood (who just happens to be the city nazim of Lahore as well) and Dunya TV Managing Director YBM to recover allegedly unpaid "salary and other dues" of some Rs. 77 lakhs. At a court hearing today, local civil judge Khizar Hayat Minhas has ordered the respondents to file written statements at the next hearing on February 3. It'll be in the papers in the morning I suppose.

Absar Alam (Photo: Tim Johnson / McClatchy Newspapers)

Now, Absar Alam (who used to work for Geo previously) was the Director News, after whose resignation, the whole Maheen Usmani case - in which she accused YBM of sexual harassment - came to light. In fact, Ms. Usmani alleged that the first instance of such harassment occurred while Mr. Alam was still the Director News and that after she reported the matter to him, he had helped assuage her concerns and shielded her from YBM. It was Alam's departure that had led to, she claimed, YBM exacting revenge on her and making life unbearable for her at Dunya TV. Part of the sleazy undertones of that case were that YBM and his minions had been accused of spreading innuendo about the professional relationship between Alam and Usmani. Could Absar Alam's grievances against Dunya TV stem from the fallout of the same case?

Obviously, we still don't know the truth of the matter since no independent inquiry was ever conducted (an internal inquiry did absolve YBM of any wrong-doing, though its results were never accepted by Usmani) and subsequently Usmani moved abroad with her husband, apparently to get away from it all. In any case, the case by Absar Alam is likely to re-ignite interest in the dormant case.

On a side-note, just how does one have pending dues of 77 lakhs? Was Absar Alam not paid his salary for a really long time? Or did his contract specify the payment of X months of salary in case he resigned? I mean, that's like more than 12 months of salary if his salary was 600,000 or more than six months of salary if his salary was 12 lakhs a month. I really should do that story about salaries in the electronic media one of these days.