We don't usually put comments from an earlier post into an entirely new post but there are a couple of reasons for doing it this time. For one, the comments are new additions to a post more than three months old and have probably been missed by most readers.
Secondly, they provide at least some current information that interests us and which we have partly been able to confirm. Specifically, that Director Current Affairs Amir Zia has either left Samaa TV or is about to leave. Here is how an anonymous poster alerted us to the news on January 29:
"ok... i'm usually the silent observer (reader) but this time its an exception.1st of all let me tell u that the reason of sacking people was never "financial". Oh, wait a minute the latest news first .i.e. Mr. Amir Zia is told to leave by 11th of March, 2010. (explain this Mr. Jehangir)."
As we had written last October, Zia had been 'demoted' in a sense from Director News and Current Affairs and transferred to Islamabad during the last round of retrenchments at the channel. Obviously, he could not have been too happy about this, a fact that is borne out by recent sightings of him in Karachi, apparently job hunting.
You may recall that the COO of Samaa, Mr. Amir Jahangir had himself denied our claims (in the comments section) in the following words:
"Mr. Amir Zia is back in the field of journalism with SAMAA's flagship program "Qoum Kay Samnay". This is every journalist's dream."
So which one is it Mr. Jahangir? Is Mr. Zia with Samaa or not? Or is he sick of the dream?
In any case, if anyone has further information on this or other developments at Samaa, please feel free to share. We are interested in the facts. No innuendo or personal attacks please.
Posts
