News After It Happens

Apparently some erstwhile DawnNews staffers are mighty miffed that we haven't given the sudden closure of Express 24/7 early this morning the same sort of coverage that we once gave to DawnNews' woes (when it existed as an English channel). They might be upset for their own personal reasons but it really was neither completely unexpected nor will it have the same repercussions on the group or on the media market.

 

There is no doubt that we did not have the story before it happened, but then neither did most of the staff at Express 24/7. Consider the following tweets from some staffers:

@Rabail26: Express 24/7 is closing down & I'm jobless, so I guess its time to edit the twitter bio. #tweetingtodistractingself

@mirza9: Not sure about the details of the channel closing down. I just found out in an e-mail. #Express24/7RIP

@mirza9: So should I text message my mom and tell her so she doesn't find out when she wakes up at 530AM and checks my twitter feed?

@mirza9: wow the channel has already stopped running news. Only promos running now. That was quick. Express 24/7 quick death.

@ahmedjung: no one has any idea about what's next and it's funny that even the HR claims that they didn't know about this!

@ahmedjung: lhr office staff told me that the drivers didn't pick the English morning shift staff! Even drivers knew before us

@ayza_omar: Executive producer EN24/7 giving his final speech. Said he didn't hav a clue till 2am.V went off air at 1am.Says its good we didn't knw.how?

@ayza_omar: All will get their November salaries immediately. One month salary for every year worked will be compensation.

I suppose you could congratulate the Lakhanis on a secret well kept. However, there are two things to consider here:

1. There was never any financial sense in running Express 24/7, not especially after the ignominious backtracking of DawnNews from being 'Pakistan's first English language channel' into an Urdu channel and the still-birth of Geo English had made the business feasibility abundantly clear. The only people really watching Express 24/7 were diplomats who did not know Urdu at all and wanted to keep abreast of what Pakistani media was covering (here's a thought: perhaps they should have been asked to fund the channel). The fact that it continued to exist for almost three years was primarily because the media house's owners made it a matter of prestige and ego. The claim by the owners that the closure was a result of "a dismal economic climate" is thus slightly disingenuous. It was always a losing proposition and it was only a matter of time that the plug was pulled. Mr Sultan Lakhani, the CEO, is however, spot on in his further explanation:

"Unlike other countries where niche channels can survive and even prosper through subscription and where there are multiple distribution platforms such as DTH, in Pakistan niche channels are wholly dependent on advertising. This system works well for mass market channels like our sister channel Express News but does not work effectively for niche channels which cater to a smaller audience.”

Express 24/7 Lahore staffers pose for a group photo (Photo: Khurram Husain)

2. While one sympathises with those of the staff who will not be "accomodated" in the media house's other ventures (and there are likely to be a substantial part of the 100-odd staff) as promised by the CEO, we would like to remind readers of what we had written back in 2009 about the way Mr Lakhani often does business. Although we had recounted this anecdote in reference to the launch of Express Tribune (which is in no danger at the moment) and not Express 24/7, it may seem very prescient to some recently laid-off staffers of the channel:

"All those being recruited may want to ask one simple question of Mr Lakhani: what about Business Today? Some of you may remember that that paper, also owned by Sultan Lakhani, was shut down one fine day at 5 pm with Mr Lakhani coming in and telling the newsroom that the paper would not be publishing the next day and that everyone should henceforth go home. They may want to ensure that this is not the fate awaiting them one fine day down the road..."

Perhaps the only funny thing about this whole episode is that, as of now - some 24 hours after it officially went off air - Express 24/7 continues to run promos detailing itself as 'Pakistan's only English news channel', and proclaiming 'Bringing you the news is our only business' and 'News as it happens', even as there is no news now available on the channel. Only the travel and personality fillers it had developed running incessantly...

...Which leads one to question whether the slot is being saved for the intended launch in January or February of the planned Express Entertainment channel. Incidentally, Dunya too is set to launch its own entertainment channel around the same time, which may give an indication of how the scales have tipped in Pakistan's media market. Suddenly, entertainment is once again being seen as a revenue earner after a long run wherein news and political talk shows were the only game in town.

No Jokes Please, We're Fashionable

Pakistanis, in general, have little tolerance for satire about themselves. That is why political humour programmes on television usually have to preface their episodes with a disclaimer, labeling them clearly as satire and not to be taken seriously. But of all Pakistanis perhaps none are as dour, humourless and self-righteous as members of the fashion 'fraternity' (let's just say this fraternity is no Animal House). For all their claims of 'playfulness' and 'fun' in their designs, they are one acidic and sour lot when at the receiving end of even good-natured ribbing.

Witness the indignant response to Express Tribune's rather funny April 1st joke on its Lifestyle pages. ET's April Fool prank 'broke' the news that the Lahore-based Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC) and the Karachi-based Fashion Pakistan (FP) - often roundly criticized for making their own daerrh eenth ki masjidein - were to merge, and carried fake quotes from prominent designers welcoming the move.

The joke that went over the fashionistas' head

Ms Sehyr Saigol, the chairperson of PFDC, Saad Ali, the CEO of PFDC and Amir Adnan, CEO of FP, then decided to fire off this letter published in ET today:

The letter reads:

"We, the Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC), Fashion Pakistan (FP) and Libas International, are writing to you in complaint of the false story published in The Express Tribune’s Life & Style Pages dated April 1, 2011.

We take strong exception to the false, incorrect, baseless, inaccurate statements and information based on conjectures and surmises, supported by statements of renowned industry personalities, which have been reported as established facts without soliciting our, or indeed anyone’s, confirmation as to the authenticity or veracity of the contents published in the aforesaid story.

This story is misleading and, in fact, represents a complete falsification of material. It also used and distorts a logo (of Libas International) without the consent of the logo copyright holder (Sehyr Saigol), infringing copyright and intellectual property rights therein.

Further, the story published has portrayed us as non-law abiding citizens and has exposed us to the threat of possible legal action by falsely reporting that the PFDC and FP are merging.

Amir Adnan (CEO of FP), Sehyr Saigol (Chairperson of the PFDC), Kamiar Rokni (member of the executive committee of the PFDC) and Hassan Sheheryar Yasin (member of the executive committee of the PFDC) shall hold your newspaper liable for any consequential damage to their reputation, and would like to strongly establish herewith that any and all information attributed to their names within this piece is false and a misrepresentation of fact and of their nature.

It is disappointing that a well-reputed newspaper such as yours has overlooked ethics and relevant laws, especially those pertaining to libel, and has published this story. We demand that you tender an apology to all the parties misrepresented and misquoted herewith and publish the same, along with a retraction of all misinformation and misquotations.

Sehyr Saigol
PFDC chairperson (executive committee) and publisher, Libas International
Saad Ali
CEO PFDC,
Amir Adnan
CEO, FP"

You just can't make this shit up. Not only do the we-take-ourselves-so-seriously authors not exhibit the slightest clue that the piece in question was quite obviously a prank (if nothing else, the organogram that posited that the 'bad boy of fashion journalism' Mohsin Sayeed would be the new 'Chairperson for Life' in the new set-up might have provided a clue to anyone with half a brain), or show any circumspection about the date of publication, do not miss the self-righteous threats of legal action and claims of 'damage to their reputations'. After this patently idiotic letter, you may well wonder, what reputations? Certainly none involving a sense of humour it would be safe to say.

The self-righteous leading lights of fashion also obviously don't even regularly read anything beyond what is sent to them as a clipping. The very next day after the joke, i.e. on April 2, ET had in fact published this story clarifying things for the dimwitted. So, just to reiterate, the poor ET editor had to publish the following clarification once again in response to the letter:

Say it slowly, in bold type, they're not the sharpest scissors in the drawer

I can sympathise with ET completely on this one. Instead of tacking regrets on to that clarification, it must have taken a lot of restraint from the editor not to have said where he probably really wanted the fashionistas to put their letter. But I guess he didn't want to take on people who have single-handedly defeated the Taliban.

The Fight To Define the Debate

Ab roshni hoti hai ke ghar jalta hai dekhain

Shola sa tawaaf-e-dar-o-deewaar karay hai

- Mir Taqi Mir

[Will it lead to light or the house burning down, we'll have to see

A spark of sorts is circling the walls of our home]

Some people still don't get it. They don't understand why people like us have been so incensed over the murder of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and the deplorable shenanigans that have followed it from those who have felt no shame and have in fact celebrated it and from those who have not come forward to condemn it in the strongest terms. They question why we are insistent on turning a worldly politician into a saint (we aren't) or why Taseer's death has taken precedence over all the other killings taking place in Pakistan (I will explain this). I read recently some comments on the journalists' mailing group PressPakistan where the convenient and insufferably lazy bogey of 'extremists on both sides' has been trotted out to explain demented murderers like the murtid Mumtaz Qadri on the one hand and 'blogs like Cafe Pyala' on the other which have used words to condemn him and his fanatical ilk. Thanks to petty idiots like Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi, the term ""liberal fascist" has become part of the lexicon of the average Pakistani commenter who understands neither liberalism nor fascism. Not that Mir or Abbasi understand either, either.

Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about people who were born without any brains or those who chose not to use them. But what people who genuinely don't understand, don't understand is that far more than the murder of one man, Taseer's killing and its glorification by the thekedaars of religion represents the breaking point for a lot of decent people. It represents a challenge to the very idea of a civilized Pakistan, it represents a challenge to the already small space occupied by rationality and logic and tolerance in this country. Those who raise their voices, raise their voices in order not to cede even this space to the madmen. They can either raise their voices now or forever hold their peace. They can either fight or submit to being swamped.

This is perhaps the only silver lining in this shameful episode, that it is forcing people to get off their intellectual (and safe) fences and exposing which side they stand on. And in that it is laying bare the real fight for the soul of Pakistan. Remarkably a fight it is becoming, despite the apparently skewed numbers, despite the mullah brigade's desperate attempts to tamp down the debate. The munafiq-e-deen (hypocrites of religion) may bring out twenty or thirty or forty thousand ill-informed fanatics on to the streets to cow down everyone but it irks them greatly that it still does not stop people from saying what they feel and exposing these thekedaars' hypocrisies, because they know that they cannot win on logic or intellect.

Abbas Athar: standing up and being counted

What is even more fascinating is that this fight is now being played out in the full glare of the media, which itself has become swept up in it. There has been plenty of internal debate and finger-pointing within the media about how this issue has been handled or mishandled. Today there was also news that both Samaa TV and Waqt TV had been fined one million rupees each by the regulatory body PEMRA for broadcasting interviews with Qadri (finally! some backbone from PEMRA). There have been some rather bold op-eds recently by people who have stood up to be counted (and one must give due credit here to the Express Group and its chief editor Abbas Athar who have been far braver and clearer about the stakes than any other media group or editor). But today I want to share two instances of the debate which are from the opposite extremes in that one is raising a questioning voice while the other is attempting to stifle all discussion.

First up are some translated excerpts from journalist Rauf Klasra, writing an op-ed in the Urdu daily Express on the 9th of January. Now, I have to say that I find the venom he directs at Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani a bit startling and curious given how close he was rumoured to be to the man but, in all honesty, I cannot say I fault his logic.

“The Tale of A Nation Destroyed by Ifs and Buts”

 By Rauf Klasra

"In front of me is Arab News, Saudi Arabia’s most widely read English newspaper. The weakness, hypocrisy and expediency the Pakistani media and more than anyone else the parliament and Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani’s government has shown, are sins the Saudi paper has tried to do penance for. The day after Salmaan Taseer’s murder, the paper wrote in its editorial that he was without doubt a shaheed [martyr] who became the victim of the bullets of those religious fanatics who wrongly believe that he perhaps wanted to end the Tauheen-e-Risalat [anti-blasphemy] laws. According to this newspaper, an extremely cruel murderer killed him [Taseer] at the behest of some satanic forces. The paper writes that Salmaan Taseer was a true Muslim and those who killed him and celebrated his death committed an act that is not liked [by God]. According to Arab News, Salmaan Taseer was a brave Muslim who was fighting for truth and justice. The paper has called on the Pakistani nation and its leaders to stand steadfastly against such forces that are fast pushing Pakistan and Islam into darkness. In the paper’s views, real Islam is for justice, truth and respect for humanity.

Saudi Arabia’s prominent newspaper called Salmaan Taseer a shaheed at a time when, besides the immensely respected journalists and columnists Abbas Athar and Najam Sethi, nobody dared refer to the Governor Punjab as a shaheed on the first day. Let alone others, even Yousuf Raza GIlani’s weak and hypocritical government reversed the appellation it gave him on PTV [Pakistan Television] after two hours. The reason given was that someone had called and threatened PTV. So in the face of one threat, the entire state fell to its knees. The editorial in the Saudi newspaper has been printed at a time when not one of the 342 members of the National Assembly have yet had the courage to stand up and condemn this murder [on the floor of the house]. Yousuf Raza Gilani stands up in the National Assembly and thinks it important to offer his comments on every random issue, only for the sake of getting himself into print and on television. But he has not yet felt the need to answer why, when he can go to the MQM headquarters Nine Zero to wash the stains of the Haj scandal from his government’s and his children’s faces, he does not have the time to offer a strong response from the state to this cruel murder.

...

I also well remember the day when, to please the Taliban, the National Assembly was bringing in Nizam-Adl in Malakand Division. The Taliban had threatened that they would themselves deal with anyone who opposed this bill. I saw with my own eyes the atmosphere of terror that pervaded the National Assembly and how all the members of the Assembly stood in line to sell the State and its people to the Taliban by signing the document. I looked everywhere and saw only one brave MNA [Member of National Assembly], whose name is Ayaz Amir. Ayaz Amir stood up and tried to explain to his deaf and dumb colleagues that the deal would make the Pakistani state weaker rather than stronger, that more blood would flow. Nobody listened to his speech. But a few days later, when the Taliban’s bloodletting increased and the State decided on an [military] operation against them, the same MNAs who that day had been submissive cowards, were making such fiery speeches that I could not believe what revolution had occurred in a week’s time. For the first time in my life I saw cowards becoming courageous, and then again last week I saw them silent in the shadow of fear. When the State and its structure have been badly shaken, our representatives’ silence is taking us further towards the abyss.

Bangladesh has now moved miles ahead of us. But neither has anybody in Pakistan read the historic judgement given by the Bangladesh Supreme Court nor has anyone found the time to discuss it. Under this judgement, religious groups have been banned from taking part in politics, because these groups were bringing religion into disrepute in the name of politics.

At first, after every suicide attack, our television stations would run the Taliban spokesmen’s point of view for hours. The spokesmen would explain in great detail why they had killed women, children and [other] human beings in suicide attacks. The bodies of the 72 poor labourers killed in the Wah Ordnance Factory had not yet been identified when a female anchor took the Taliban spokesman live on air in her programme, and after 20 minutes not only thanked him but even said 'Inshallah we will speak to you in the future too.' The meaning was, 'you continue killing poor people with your bombs, we will continue to run your point of view like this.' The same sort of thing is still going on. In the name of taking a point of view, such words are being aired that one cannot comprehend where this media is taking us and why it has become an enemy of its own society and country. This society is being destroyed in the name of sensationalism and ratings. We certainly cannot blame the Pakistani people for the rising fanaticism because they have never given these religious parties the right to rule over them. The way our media is becoming an agent of extremism, one day this same fanaticism will eat it away like termites eat away wood."

Now keeping in mind what Klasra validly says about the media and the religious fitna parties, have a look at the excerpts from this miserable excuse of a programme, Bolta Pakistan, broadcast on Aaj TV today (Aaj TV having become particularly rabid in recent times). In it the hosts, Salim Bokhari (who looks perpetually like he just sucked on a lemon) and former bureaucrat-turned-pop-historian Orya Maqbool Jan, try their best to glorify the anti-blasphemy law amendments rally held in Karachi on Sunday as some sort of representative voice of the masses, as the shining new hope for toppling the government akin to the PNA (Pakistan National Alliance) movement against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and get their guests to justify Salmaan Taseer's murder. Don't miss the point where Bokhari exclaims (no doubt to please his new masters at The Nation and elsewhere) that he can't figure out how any Muslim could be a liberal...


Part 1:




Part 2:




Part 3:




See the difference in the approaches to the question at hand? See the desperation of Bokhari at Nawaz Sharif's refusal to play the game he wanted him to play? See the attempt to shift the debate? At least these two anchor-wankers may have inadvertently stumbled upon / divulged one bit of truth in the midst of their grossly irresponsible and political agenda-driven programme. Remember what was subsequently revealed about the PNA movement, how it had been funded and organized specifically by other forces to topple ZAB?

So this then is the choice. Make yourself heard or let the anchor-wankers define the debate for you.

The Continuously Intriguing Media

It's getting so that even reporting on people changing jobs in the media has become risky business. As in, risky for one's credibility. Even though we do rely on very good sources before putting the information out here.

The latest U-turn (and believe us, it is a U-turn) is morning show star Dr Shahista Wahidi's announcement today on ARY that the news of her departure from the channel is simply rumour and not based on fact. Yes, Dr Wahidi, tell that to Geo which had bade Nadia Khan farewell and was having your new show's set designed. Obviously, this can only mean that ARY has upped the ante even further than the 22 lakhs a month Geo had offered Wahidi to lure her. Some people have all the luck, particularly at channels where many complain of not being paid their far more meagre salaries on time.

It was precisely because of this pendulum style of job negotiations that we had held off on reporting about The News senior investigative journalist Rauf Klasra's potential move from the Jang Group to the Express Media Group, which he himself had threatened many times earlier and which we had actually known about for some time. But now that the daily Express itself has confirmed it, we can add to it the reasons for it beyond the lure of a better pay packet.

In fact, Klasra had been rather unhappy at the Jang Group for quite some time. The official reason that Klasra is apparently now giving is his unhappiness with the, in his opinion, 'agenda-driven anti-government line of the Jang Group.' (It must be remembered that Klasra is known to be quite friendly with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is from his hometown, Multan, and who it is believed is sometimes himself the source for some of Klasra's stories.) The upset with the excesses of the Jang Group may well be true, but it is also true that Klasra has been at daggers drawn with some of his colleagues at the Islamabad bureau of The News, particularly with the Editor Investigations Ansar Abbasi and his junior Ahmad Noorani, whom he accuses of constantly maligning and undermining him.

The rivalry between the three truly came out into the open last year when the website pkpolitics.com ran a story about Klasra's alleged corruption in receiving favours from the government in the allocation of plots and government housing for his (government employee) wife and relatives, claims Klasra strenuously denied. Klasra believed the story was instigated by the Nawaz Sharif camp to discredit him in retaliation for stories he had done about the Sharifs' alleged corruption and maladministration and claimed in a Jang column in September 2009 to have served a legal notice for 100 million pounds on the website (we have no idea what became of it). But more than that he also saw the direct connivance of Abbasi and Noorani in what he termed a 'smear campaign' against him. (Noorani, who most believe says things and writes stories at Abbasi's behest, even weighed in publicly against Klasra.) Things became so bitter at the Islamabad bureau that Mir Shakilur Rahman did one of his trademark organizational fudges to calm things down: he removed Klasra from under Abbasi and gave him a made-up title of Editor Reporting, reporting directly to the Editor. (Incidentally, the current Editor of The News Rawalpindi, Mohammad Mallick, supported Klasra in his fight against pkpolitics, which makes eminent sense since pkpolitics had also run a story earlier about Mallick's alleged corruption.)

But things continued to simmer and came to a head last month when Klasra ran two stories on September 28 and September 30. The first of these claimed that "backdoor channels played a key role" in defusing a crisis between the government and the judiciary. Bizarrely, the newspaper carried another story side-by-side with this, from "our correspondent" (code for Abbasi / Noorani) quoting Supreme Court sources debunking Klasra's story. (The Jang Group must have the only newspapers in the world that carry two diametrically opposite 'investigative' stories on the same day.) In fact, the Supreme Court exerted so much pressure for a retraction that The News published an "unconditional and sincere apology" on September 30. However, since Klasra was adamant about his story (insider sources say he told management he was willing to go to jail for it if need be) the apology was published from the editor, printer and publisher. No journalist appreciates a management that refuses to stand by its reporter and apparently Klasra was incensed that the apology was published despite his standing by his story. In fact, he blamed Abbasi for goading the management into publishing the apology and even hit out publicly at Abbasi on a Dunya TV programme later.

The second story Klasra published on September 30, claimed that President Zardari had admitted in an internal Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) meeting that he had been "misled" into not defending in court the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) by some unnamed "players of the game." Klasra further cited "one insider source" to claim that Zardari may have been referring to a well-respected but unnamed former judge from Karachi. Once again, two days later Ahmad Noorani published a story claiming that Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim denied the "president's defamatory allegations" and mocking Klasra for defaming him. This was another bizarre rebuttal since Klasra had never actually named anyone in his story. It is also obvious from the story that Ebrahim had been goaded into offering a rebuttal, as if he was the only respected retired judge in Karachi.

These two instances of direct undermining by colleagues were apparently the straw that broke the camel's back, leading Klasra to finally say enough is enough. For whatever it's worth, Klasra has often broken some interesting stories at The News / Jang and his departure will certainly leave the Jang Group poorer in the investigative department. The Jang Group will also miss his contacts within the government since Abbasi and Noorani have already been accused by the PPP of running one-sided stories. Klasra, whose recently published book Ek Siyaasat, Kayee Kahaniyaan [One Politics, Many Stories] has already become a best-seller, may be on a high at the moment, but it remains to be seen how well he adjusts to a new organizational culture at the Express Media Group.

Meanwhile, Aaj TV continues its blood-letting of staff after the departure of Syed Talat Hussain for Dawn and DawnNews. More staff have been fired from the Islamabad bureau, leading others to wonder just exactly what Aaj's management has in mind for the channel.

Media Musical Chairs

There is such a frenetic game of musical chairs going on in the media these days that we can hardly keep up. So we decided to just do a short post, combining all the major transitions we do know about or have heard about...

First up, rumours are swirling that Fahd Hussain, who recently left Express TV to join Dunya, may be signing up with Aaj TV, where Talat Hussain recently announced his departure. According to this website, Fahd has been involved in some clashes with Dunya TV's owner Mian Aamir Mahmood and is also finding it frustrating not to yet have found a primetime slot there. We do not know how true these particular reports are but Fahd himself apparently refuses to either confirm or deny the rumours of negotiations with Aaj, which might be some sort of indication.

Matters are complicated by further rumours that Talat Hussain's apparent move to DawnNews may have hit snags over his desire to bring with him about half a dozen other subordinates at fairly high salaries, at which DawnNews management has balked. There are also reports that Aaj management is going full throttle to retain Talat by offering to address the issues he had with the channel. If indeed either or both of these reports are true, and Talat does in fact stay at Aaj, obviously there would not be any empty slot for Fahd to move into.

In any case, that's enough of the rumours. What is certain are the following:

Sana Bucha, the host of Crisis Cell who recently resigned from Geo to go to ARY, is coming back to Geo, believe it or not. Apparently, she began having doubts about her move to ARY almost immediately upon signing up with them, realizing (a bit late) that she would be reporting to one President Dr S&M there. Even before she had formally begun work there, however, she therefore allowed herself to be poached by the Express Media Group. This is when it got even more interesting. Having signed up with Express (in what capacity, whether for the Express Tribune or for their channels, we are not quite sure), she was beseeched by a rather dramatic Mir Ibrahim Rahman (MIR) to come back to the Geo fold. Apparently she was put under a lot of family pressure (the Rahmans know her family) and finally buckled on the condition that MIR would handle the embarrassment with the Express management. In this short, almost virtual job hopping spree, it is said that she managed to come back to Geo at double her previous salary. A good strategy if you can swing it.

Meanwhile, from the looks of this return, the negotiations that Geo was having with Meher Bokhari (which have been confirmed) to wean her away from Samaa, seem to have come to naught.

But Geo has managed to snag one other big fish, so to speak. As we reported earlier (in rumour terms), Dr Shahista Wahidi is all set to take over the morning show at Geo, replacing the once-favoured Nadia Khan. Wahidi has left ARY and scooted over to Geo's welcoming arms at a whopping salary. Her stint will begin anon.

In already established news, Zaffar Abbas has formally taken over (on October 4) as Editor Dawn from the departing Abbas Nasir, who has moved back to London with his family after four-years at the helm of the paper. And Aaj TV has introduced former bureaucrat and columnist Orya Maqbool Jan and former The News editor Salim Bokhari as the bickering replacements for Mushtaq Minhas and Nusrat Javed in their Bolta Pakistan programme. The latter duo, as we all know, now bicker over at Dunya TV on Dunya Mere Aagay.

On an unrelated note, Arif Nizami's Pakistan Today is now said to launch today (October 5) in Lahore and, interestingly, will be published in the tabloid format, making it the country's first such daily.

How Pathetically Low Can You Go? (Updated)

A picture has been doing the rounds on email purporting to show the debauchery of Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani. It shows a smiling Raisani with his head on the shoulders of a young, T-shirt clad girl. The picture has actually been culled from the Facebook page of Express News, where it was posted - for what exact news reason we do not know - on October 1. The poster of the photograph (we are not sure whether from within Express News or one of its 'community') claims it was taken at a party in Islamabad, the obvious implication being that Raisani was drunk and coming on to the girl.

As of now there are over 700 comments beneath the photograph which mostly range from downright abusive of Raisani (and generally all "ayyash" [debauched] politicians) to calls to "kill the lech." Most are unprintable. But even worse are the comments reserved for the girl, whose moral character was openly questioned, whose body language was sleazily analyzed and who, thanks to one commenting woman (!), was immediately and conclusively dubbed a "call girl."

We too were forwarded the photograph and link but decided there was no reason to carry such an obviously salacious piece of character assassination. No matter what one might think of Raisani and his political antics, this was clearly, we figured, none of our business... Until we received an anguished email from a friend of the girl, with proof, to set the record straight.

So guess what that poor, poor girl's name is: Aana Hassan Raisani. Yes, she is Aslam Raisani's own teenage daughter, who attends school in Islamabad. And the photograph of a father expressing innocent affection for his daughter was apparently taken at their home. Seeing how such an innocent (and private) moment was twisted and presented as one of alleged depravity by no-doubt the most depraved of people themselves, made me almost sick to my stomach. And I have a fairly strong stomach. Then the outrage took over.

In addition to Aana's friend who emailed us, a bunch of her other friends and classmates are now taking on the commenting sad fucks on the Facebook page itself. According to the friend who emailed us, Aana herself has been so severely traumatised by this event and the venom spewed about her and her father, that she has gone incommunicado. Nevertheless students from three schools in Islamabad plan to protest on Tuesday against this amazingly sleazy episode.

We have consciously decided not to republish the photograph. But if you have the stomach, read the comments under the photograph again to see how sick, perverted and corrupted the minds of the people in this country have become. To heap abuse on and defame someone without a shred of evidence or even a modicum of common decency, to be ready to draw the most perverted of inferences without a second thought, really, what can one say about such sad excuses for human beings? But what it also indicates is how quickly Pakistanis are willing to believe the worst about political figures, a function, I would submit, more of the environment we have all had a hand in creating than of anything the politicians themselves have done or do.

As for Express News, which ultimately bears responsibility for the content on its page, well may be it should just take its onanistic being and go screw itself.


: : : UPDATES : : :

UPDATE 1:
So, that possesser of high journalistic standards, the Islamabad daily Jinnah, had actually published the photograph on its front page as well yesterday, certainly without any fact checking but also without any sense of decency. After Aslam Raisani apparently threatened the paper with legal action, unless it published a retraction today, the paper has published the following front-page grovelling apology (translated here from the Urdu):

"It Was a Father-Daughter Photograph"

"Islamabad (Special Report): Yesterday we had published on this front page a photograph of Nawab Aslam Raisani with the following caption: "This is a photograph... which people have been sharing on the internet (Facebook) for the last two days. If this photograph is real, it is a remarkable picture...But if it is the product of the computer and Photoshop, then from a technical point of view, the person who made it should be praised [for their skills]... From a moral point of view, however, the person should be severely condemned. And if this picture is of this person's relative and someone has misused it by bringing it on the internet, that is also worthy of being condemned. But if this picture is correct, then, the judgement is for our readers to make.

The details that have emerged regarding this photograph, according to them, this is a picture of a father-daughter. It was indeed immoral to bring it on to the internet and Facebook. The people who did this should be arrested. Daily Jinnah requests the Cyber Wing of the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] to conduct an impartial investigation into this [matter] and undertake a legal investigation about how this picture appeared on the internet.

Jinnah Administration"

Notice how Jinnah feels no contrition about its own standards of journalism - for publishing a photograph taken off the net without any fact checking and obviously only for salacious reasons -  and passes the blame entirely on to 'the internet' and 'Facebook'. Note also the weasely way it claims it had distanced itself from the photograph in the first place. In fact, I had seen the October 3 epaper earlier and I am not even certain the reference to the possibility of the 'misuse of a picture of a relative' was in the original caption (I don't recall it). It certainly exists now in the October 3 epaper version but the only way to confirm that the paper has not tampered with the original caption would be to check it against the actual print copy of the paper. Regardless of whether the original caption is true or not, daily Jinnah deserves as much condemnation as Express News. Perhaps the newpaper bodies All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) should also issue a condemnation of their member publication.


UPDATE 2:
Express Tribune's web editor has written to us and claims the Facebook page is not an official page run by the Express Media Group, is bogus and has been reported to Facebook for copyright infringement. The text of his clarification follows:

"To clarify this issue, The Express News Facebook page which put up the photo of Chief Minister Raisani is not run by the Express Media group (or unofficially by any of its employees to the extent that we have investigated) and has already been reported to Facebook for copyright infringement. The matter is pending Facebook's response.

The act of sharing this photo is condemnable and would never be allowed. 

The only official Facebook pages for The Express Media Group are the Express Interactive and Tribune Facebook pages.

Best regards and will keep you up to date on when Facebook shuts down this bogus page. "

We appreciate the clarification and apologize for our strong words based on the assumption that this was an officially sanctioned Facebook page. However, we do wish this matter of copyright infringement had been taken seriously and dealt with before the current scandal broke. The Facebook page has been in existence for quite some time now (it has over 40,000 'fans'), displays the Express News logo prominently and also carries regular updates from Express News. We hope, in the interest of transparency, the Express Media Group shares publicly whatever legal action it does take against against those who infringed its copyright and scandalized the organization.


UPDATE 3:
So Express Media Group has finally managed to have Facebook shut down that page masquerading as Express News today (6 October). Confirmation of the shut down was received by EMG and forwarded to us. In addition they have informed us that EMG has also filed for an investigation into the matter with the FIA's Cyber Crime Wing. The Express Tribune and the Daily Express also carried clarifications on their back pages today dissociating themselves from the fake Facebook page. With regard to the lapse in taking the offending page to task before it caused damage to EMG's credibility, Jahanzaib Haque, the web editor, wrote to us to say that:

"The copyright infringement did not come to our attention till this issue surfaced, which is really unfortunate (we also noticed that the page had existed for a really long time), but better late than never."

We thank EMG for taking swift action in the matter and also for transparently sharing their details in the matter. It is much appreciated.