Actually, there is much evidence that Bilawal Bhutto has much interest and knowledge of Pakistani politics. A simple search of Google revealed a number of public political speeches made by Bilawal such as this:

Additionally, there are reports from years ago in which Bilawal states that “politics is in my blood”.

Obviously, having been reading at Oxford for the past years, Bilawal Bhutto does not have the practical experience of a more seasoned politician. This is not anything surprising as all politicians must start somewhere. But while it is reasonable to state a person’s experience, it is not appropriate to make a claim such as that the person is “more interested in Facebook and hip-hop music than Pakistani politics” unless you have actual evidence.

Murtaza Ali Shah presents no evidence to support his claim and, actually, there is much evidence that contradicts it.

The mainstream electronic and print media shown biases and failed to cover the incidents in a way that could show Christians as victims and help common masses to understand that innocents have been killed. It did not speak about the hearing in the court in which the police informed that no evidences were found against the two brothers. There were no witnesses in the case or any other evidence which could prove they were guilty. If these could have been shown that they have been falsely accused, masses would have sympathies and condemn the extremists. The media created more miseries and misunderstandings about the Christians.

Even the Christian business places in Warispura areas have been badly damaged that had been established in years by the poor Christians. The loss of business and injuries to Christians by the Muslim attackers has also not been covered even. The loss of Christians business is estimated in millions of US $s.

Take the example of July 20, 2010’s The News International one of the largest English Newspaper of Pakistan and considered the most Liberal news group. They covered the story on the second page of the News with the title; “Attackers killed 2 “Blasphemers” in police custody” The group forgot it has to be decided by the court weather they were blasphemers or not. The next day July 21, 2010, the same correspondent asked a question from Akram Gill, Member National Assembly for minorities in a press conference, “why both the brothers had been distributing the handwritten papers at bus stand? He reported, the MNA had no answer for that question. Again the reporter misled the readers despite knowing the fact that there has been no witness stating they have distributed even the complainant denied it.

The headline of The News International was enough to make Muslims understand that the murdered brothers were blasphemers and make understand that Christians commit blasphemy. The Urdu language press which is largely read in the country is even worst. They published stories that could trigger violence. However, “Express Tribune” and “DAWN” English papers done a good job for balanced coverage. Dawn reported, Muhammad Khuram Shahzad the complainant and who got the brothers arrested belongs to an organization called Tehirk-i-Hurmat-i- Rasool, (“Organization for the Honor of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH”) This group runs by a UN and Pakistan banned armed fighters outlawed organization called “Lashkar-e-Taiba”.

Today’s issue includes two stories about the second tenure as COAS granted to Gen. Ashraf Kayani by PM Gilani that offer no factual news reporting, but instead are opinion columns opposing Gen. Kayani’s continued service as head of the military.

The first column, by Ikram Sehgal, is not so much a news report at all, but an examination of Gen. Kayani’s new tenure viewed in the context of the author’s previous opinion columns.

In a dramatic late night announcement by the prime minister on July 22, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was given an extension as COAS for three years from the date his present term expires on November 29, 2010. By some coincidence in my article last Thursday, I had said: “A new COAS of the Pakistan Army must be promoted. It would be severely disappointing if Kayani accepted the offer of extension being dangled in front of him. He hasan image that would suffer for posterity. If he cannot be C-in-C, Kayani should refuse an extension in the Waheed Kakar tradition”.

In essence, Ikram Sehgal is even admitting that he is not a news reporter, but is actually a serial opinion columnist. This is fine, and he is certainly entitled to his opinions, but his columns should be moved to the Opinion page and not published as legitimate news stories.

The same problem is found with Ansar Abbasi. His column today is another opinion piece that opposes a new tenure for Gen. Kayani. In fact, Ansar Abbasi’s column does not even pretend to be a factual report, but includes his opinion in the very title of the column: “Was this extension really needed? Probably not.”

Ansar Abbasi goes on to repeat the same opinion voiced by Ikram Sehgal in his column – that Gen. Kayani should refuse to accept a new tenure and simply retire.

Kayani did perform extremely well as the Army chief, he remained apolitical, did not allow the military to intervene in politics, generally believed to have fought well against terrorism, ensured free and fair February 2008 elections and played his role quite sensibly during tense moments but still giving him an extension should have been avoided. It is yet to be seen if Kayani would accept the offer and continue till November 2013. It would, however, be good for the institution of Army if he does not.

This is, unfortunately, not a problem only in today’s issue. Just yesterday, The News Group Editor Shaheen Sehbai wrote an opinon column that was featured as a ‘top story’ and was nothing but an opinion piece with a little conspiracy thrown in for good measure.

The government must be feeling a sense of relief calculating that in the last two years General Kayani has kept the army away from politics, as much as he could, had not interfered even when there was a lot of noise against corruption, highhandedness and defiance to the superior judiciary and had ìtoleratedî the shortcomings or inadequacies of the elected government, deliberately looking away in the national interest.

Again, this is not news reporting but Shaheen Sehbai taking the opportunity to air his opinion against the elected government.

Shaheen Sehbai, Ikram Sehgal and Ansar Abbasi all wrote opinion columns opposing a new tenure as COAS for Gen. Kayani. They did not write news reports. These pieces do not belong as ‘top stories’ but would be appropriate on the opinion page. If The News is concerned that there are too many opinions to fit only the opinion page and thus they need to fill the rest of the newspaper with them, perhaps they need to change their name from The News to The Opinion.

Ansar Abbasi reports that there is a conspiracy to change the contents of the report, and that the Education Minister Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali has sent the report back to HEC for editing.

Sources in the ministry confided to The News that the Education Minister Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali directed his secretary to ask the HEC chairman to withdraw the report and re-submit it with certain changes. The minister wanted the HEC chairman to delete the report’s portion mentioning the NA Committee on Education.

Following the minister’s direction, these sources said, the secretary education asked HEC Chairman Javed Leghari to withdraw the report and exclude from it the statement that the report should be forwarded to the NA Committee on Education.

But Sabir Shah writes in a different article that there is a conspiracy to bury the controversy by appointing a crony to cover it up.

It has also been learnt from the reliable sources that after meeting with the HEC chairman, Prime Minister Gilani held a detailed meeting with the education minister and Secretary Education Imtiaz Qazi in which they finalised the strategy to put the issue of fake degrees under the carpet.

According to the sources, the meeting remained focused on the ways to prolong and ultimately to do away with the issue of fake degrees of public representatives. However, Imtiaz Qazi denied having any knowledge about the meeting and the procedure to be followed in this regard. He also denied being present in the meeting. “I am not really aware about the whole issue. We are waiting for the in writing directives from the prime minister after which we would formulate our strategy,” he said.

According to the sources, nominating a minister for reviewing the process means that a single person would be handling the issue according to his own desire. “He would be accountable to nobody and there would not be any check over the process,” he said. Talking to The News, the Education Ministry spokesperson said that since the HEC comes under Education Ministry, therefore it could not communicate directly to parliamentary body.”

What makes these conflicting conspiracies especially interesting is that, according to Sabir Shah’s report, the report was not even delivered until late night.

The officials of Education Ministry did not receive any report in this regard till late night.

If the report was not delivered until late night, how did all of these people come up with so many conflicting conspiracies? And if there is some conspiracy, which is it?

In yet another article in the same day’s newspaper, Tariq Butt reports that there is a conspiracy to declare runners up as winners.

On the editorial page of the same newspaper, The News writes about a fourth conspiracy:

Going by what Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan has said in an interview he gave to this newspaper, what may happen next is that the government could seek to promulgate new legislation, though the minister was vague as to its content. He said that there had been contact with several political parties (and that there was ‘documentary proof’ of this) seeking to lay the matter to rest. Their motivation for this will almost certainly be to protect politicians in the future from the withering blast of the media, as well as perhaps tightening their own internal selection procedures and criteria to ensure that those selected to represent us are less obviously liars and fakers. Considering his statement objectively, it does appear that the fake degree issue has given a severe jolt to those politicians who are self-serving and happy to deceive their electorates – who probably expect to be deceived anyway.

While it is disappointing that The News has such contempt for the people of Pakistan that it declares they “probably expect to be deceived anyway”, what is worse is that the editorial’s conspiracy theory contradicts what is reported elsewhere in the newspaper!

According to a report by Dilshad Azeem, the coalition partners have “rejected in plain words” any suggestion that they have been meeting to craft a law to protect fraud.

Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), Awami National Party (ANP) and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (Fazl), the three parties providing the numbers for survival of the coalition government, confirmed that neither the government consulted them nor they had approached the key functionaries on the fake degrees issue.

They dubbed the law minister’s assertion as totally out of context and against their respective stands, and said that those MPs, who gave wrong information about their respective education or any other matter, must be dealt in accordance with the law of the land.

It appears that, with no reliable source of information, The News is simply publishing anything and everything with the hope that ’something sticks’. But this is not journalism, is only guessing and gossiping. Furthermore, it is impossible to not notice that every ‘guess’ published in the newspaper has a particular angle – the government is doing something wrong. Certainly no journalist should assume that everything is done without some discussion of how to make uncomfortable matters ‘go away’, but also no responsible journalist should assume that there is always some dark scheme at work.

Whether or not someone thinks that the degree issue even matters, everyone deserves to have facts – not conspiracies. The web of conspiracies in The News has become so tangled that reading the newspaper one reader can come away with many different and conflicting versions of events. That’s not news reporting, it’s just gossip.

The News

Despite publishing the moderate and reasoned columns by Raza Rumi and Ayaz Amir, The News continues to publish unsupported rumour and political ‘hit pieces’ by some of its employees.

Last Friday, The News published a column by Ansar Abbasi that implies that the investigation of corruption of Farooq Leghari is being carried out as revenge by Zardari. The author excuses his unsupported accusations by framing them as questions, a popular propaganda trick.

Is this not what Asif Ali Zardari used to complain when he was on the receiving end? When he got acquitted in one case, another was ready. Is he taking revenge for what happened to him?

Nowhere does Ansar Abbasi explain why the president of the nation would be spending his time orchestrating a petty scheme to try corruption cases against somebody’s brother, nor does he provide any evidence for this being the case. Rather, he merely asks a question, “Could it be so…?” and plants the idea in the minds of readers.

In another article from last week, Tariq Butt wrote an overtly political article that accused government and NAB officials of corruption and using an intelligence agency to keep government officials under surveillance. Butt’s article provided no evidence other than the supposed statements of an anonymous “ex-official”, making all of the author’s claims suspicious.

In fact, publishing overtly political articles has been an ongoing problem of The News. While it is commendable that Jang allows a few columns by Raza Rumi and Ayaz Amir to appear on their pages, it is no substitute for changing the general culture of their newspapers and ensuring that what they publish is fair and factual. Perhaps if Jang reigned in their out-of-control reporters, they would not have to allot column space to such calls for basic levels of media responsibility as those written by Raza Rumi and Ayaz Amir.

Jang Group, as with all media, would do well to heed the advice of Mr Raza Rumi

Many pertinent questions have arisen from this conduct of journalists as well as the legislators. The political parties have to display more scrutiny and devise ways of achieving internal accountability. The media at its end has to work towards self-regulation and setting a code of conduct. It should be reiterated that freedom of media is linked to democratic development. By tarnishing the image of civilian politicians and diminishing the trust in democracy the media would be doing a big disservice to its future and credibility.

Three important policy imperatives must be kept in view. Electronic and print media have to work quickly towards a regulatory framework. The state should have nothing to do with this process and it should remain within the realm of the media. Political parties must also show restraint while engaging with media and they should demonstrate that their internal processes are transparent and rule-based. Finally, media barons and owners of newspapers must ensure that the media does not become another interest group like the lawyers fluent in occasional violence and drunk on moral superiority.

Such a person we have in Ayaz Amir, a career journalist who finds himself now in the National Assembly on the PML-N ticket. Writing for The News yesterday, Ayaz Amir makes a persuasive claim that much of today’s media attacks are essentially the work of ‘ivory tower’ intellectuals who are attacking for the sake of the attack, and not for any constructive purpose.

If the political class did not get earlier it should do so now. The target of the campaign set in motion last year was not just Asif Zardari. It was the political system as a whole, all in the name of fighting corruption, the slogan with which every road leading to hell has been paved in Pakistan since 1947.

Zardari was just a metaphor and a symbol. The wheels of intrigue, with a band of media jehadis in the lead, would not have stopped with him. They would have gone on to Nawaz Sharif, ending eventually in that dream of most retired senior mandarins, an ‘interim’ government on the Bangladesh model.

This is an interesting claim, and one that ought to be taken seriously. The blog “New Pakistan” found an older article by Shaheen Sehbai that suggests a “one down, two to go” plan.

The main responsibility of this state of affairs rests with the PPP and its leader Asif Ali Zardari, who has astounded his critics, and supporters, by adopting an almost irresponsible attitude, for reasons not yet known publicly, though there is a lot of talk and buzz that he was having some serious intra-family problems, specially with his own children in Dubai.
…
Mr Musharraf has to be blamed a lot for this continuing uncertainty as he did not have the grace to admit that he was now a problem and the sooner he got out of the way, the easier it may be for the country’s political system to settle down.

He has uselessly wasted his time and energy to hang on to a broken branch, which may snap at any moment but in the process he has dragged the system down and consumed whatever positive momentum the new government had to tackle major issues.

But given his state of mind, no one should have expected him to show grace and should have been booted out earlier. According to all the signals emanating from his old constituency, there would not have been a single soul worried about his departure had it been done properly and quickly. Even now, no tears would be shed if a surgical operation gets him going out of the country, or in a safe house within.
…
A greater responsibility also rests with Mian Nawaz Sharif, who has been consistent in his positions but has failed to take political decisions in line with that position to let the system move on.

He fears that if he breaks the coalition, the system will go down. This is absolutely not the case and no one in any power corridor can think, or is thinking, of disrupting this set-up and bringing in anything wild like the Bangladesh option or a replica of the 1999 Musharraf coup.

Ayaz Amir does note that it is very possible that this is all simply the result of self-righteous media representatives cynically exploiting the news to make fame for themselves without considering the consequences.

There is a self-righteous streak in our middle class, especially the non-voting middle class, which makes it adopt over-pure positions, which far from doing any good end up rolling out the red carpet for military saviours.

But even this is rather strange, if you think about it.

Politicians can be the world’s biggest scoundrels but it would be a dreary and bleak world if they were the only scoundrels around. Every profession has its rogues, every calling its blackguards. No one will accuse generals and judges, or lawyers for that matter, of being saints. No one in his right mind will describe journalists as knights of any round table. Why raise the bar to the skies when it comes to politicians?

For all their complaining about corruption, the media is not so innocent itself. The blog Let Us Build Pakistan published a report on tax defaulters from the media recently, why this did not get so much attention, I wonder? What other bodies are buried in the yards of our sacred cows on TV and in the newspapers?

Of course, this is not to suggest that corruption should not be exposed, only to question why the double standard for the political class and not the journalists? What if we got rid of all the journalists who ever wrote something that did not come true, or did not pay their taxes, or took a drink of some alcohol or flirted with some woman? Who would be left?

There are bombings nearly every day it seems, and yet The News, just for one example, is filled with stories about where someone got their degree, and what the HEC is thinking about the matter. Is this a good use of media? Or is it avoiding the real news? Ayaz Amir is a journalist and a politician also. He can see from both sides of the chess table and provide a unique perspective on the media-political situation. It would be worth our time to pay attention.

Tariq Butt’s rhetoric is over-the-top, and betrays an obvious bias against the NAB officials. The author begins his article by describing top NAB officials as “handpicked loyalists of the ruling party” and claims that the agency has “shut itself into a cocoon, with all doors and windows closed to keep a lid on its actions and secret plans”.

The reporter then acts shocked when the agency’s acting chairman and prosecutor general do not take his calls on their personal mobile phones. It is interesting to note that harassing individuals on their personal mobile phones is on the same day condemned by another journalist, Mr Kamran Shafi, who complains of this behavior by members of the intelligence agencies. Have Jang reporters begun acting like rogue intelligence agents?

Tariq Butt’s claims are supposedly backed by the statements of yet another one of Jang’s super secret and anonymous “ex-officials” who, of course, no longer works for the agency that he is supposedly giving confidential information about.

This anonymous source, if he even exists, supposedly told Tariq Butt that “all the officers and staffers, who were still with the NAB, were under strict surveillance by an intelligence agency on the orders of the government to know who tries to leak out any information about whatever was being planned inside the NAB.”

But Tariq Butt admits that his alleged source does not even work for NAB, so how would this person be privy to such information? In fact, he wouldn’t.

But Mr Butt does not let that stop him from making the most hysterical and slanderous accusations. He concludes his article by accusing that NAB “is now engaged in devising ways and means to serve a particular set of corrupt people”. For all the complaints about MNAs allegedly lying about their degrees, I wonder when Jang will begin to hold their own employees accountable for the scandalous behaviour that appears on the front page of their own newspaper.

The News

PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif is given front-page coverage for speaking out against the PA resolution against media,when it is his party that is responsible for the measure. Shahbaz Sharif (PML-N) also receives prominent coverage for speaking out against the same resolution despite his party being the source. Meanwhile, PPP MNA Sherry Rehman is only covered briefly inside the newspaper for her statements against the resolution.

But it is not simply this giving more coverage to one political party taking a popular position (in effect an attempt to convey that the other party is not speaking out), there is a distinct double-standard at work if you look at how the newspaper treats PML-N and PPP.

The coverage of PML-N leaders speaking out against the resolution that their own members passed is meant to demonstrate this this was the action of some rogue MPAs who were not following the party line. In fact, The News takes this PML-N talking point at face value in their editorial today.

PML-N leader has called for the expulsion of the mover of the resolution, member of his own party and has accused him of trying to cover up his crime of faking his degree. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that he ‘cherishes the free media as much as he likes an independent judiciary in the country.’ A belated damage control effort within PML-N appears to be underway.

Obviously, it is possible for some MPAs to act out of turn and The News is perfectly happy to give the benefit of doubt to Nawaz and Shahbaz.

But when it comes to PPP, the standard is different. Instead of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, The News takes the position of ‘assumed guilty’! In an adjacent editorial about a leaked letter that is allegedly by NAB Prosecutor General Irfan Qadir questioning the reinstatement of CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry, The News lays the blame firmly on the PPP.

If they were not the views of the government of Mr Gilani, then whose views were they and what was afoot with Mr Qadir seemingly playing a lone game? NAB is under the control of the Law Ministry which itself is piloted by Law Minister Babar Awan. Presumably the Law Ministry is accountable to somebody at a higher level and who else would that be but the prime minister – unless ministers have been given a freehand? Babar Awan increasingly seems to be a law unto himself.

…

So where does this leave Mr Gilani and his statement that Mr Qadir’s views were not those of his government? They might not be the views of his government, but again, his might not be the only government operational today; which might also explain why the law minister is able to act as he pleases – above or below the law.

Do you see what they have done? Nawaz and Shahbaz are praised for speaking out against out-of-line party members, but PM Gilani is insinuated to be a liar and the government is to be held accountable for any misplaced comma of a PPP member. This is a double standard so obvious that it is hard not to think that The News is acting not as journalism but as propaganda to promote one political party over another.

That is not all. Other so-called ‘journalists’ for The News continue to use innuendo to smear politicians they don’t like (PPP only).

Tariq Butt begins his column about the selection of a new NAB chief by insinuating that PM Gilani is trying to appoint a ‘crony’.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani is incapacitated under the case law and statute to appoint a crony as the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) because he has to convince two other key consultees about the credentials of such a nominee before notifying his selection, legal experts say.

The remainder of the article discusses the legal process and requirements for appointing chairman of the NAB. There is no presentation of any evidence that Gilani or anyone in government is trying to appoint anyone but the best, most qualified person. Instead, Tariq Butt simply assumes this is the case and smears the PM by implying as much.

The pro-PML-N bias of The News is easily proven today. Obviously, editorial pages are for opinions and the authors can take whatever position they choose. But when the opinions of the reporters and editors are so obviously using double standards and those double standards begin to color the entire reporting – that is not journalism but is political propaganda.

Perhaps Jang Group needs to update the name of its English-language newspaper from The News International to The News (PML-N). Then the readers would at least know what to expect. Better, though, would be for Jang to require some objectivity and fact-based reporting so that The News can be useful to the entire nation, and not only one political party.

It’s ironic that Ansar Abbasi claims that the government is trying to “scandalise and ridicule the superior judiciary”, all the while his same newspaper publishes articles that uses phrases like “the government’s ugly effort” and “desparate”. Abbasi in his column says that “the government has launched this frontal attack against the Chief Justice”, but in another article in the same paper is titled, “Govt attacked, judiciary backed”. Which is it?

But that is not the only double-standard that is obvious. Ansar Abbasi says that in questioning the validity of President Zardari’s decision to reinstate the Chief Justice, NAB “ignored the basic fact that the issues regarding the judges restoration or those reappointed under the Naek formula have already settled and could not be questioned anymore.”

So the judges restoration which occurred in 2009 cannot be questioned anymore, but the Swiss cases which were dismissed in 2008 should be re-opened? NRO which was promulgated in 2007 can be repealed? Is there a rule that only that which can be used as a weapon against Zardari is fair to be questioned, and anything else is “already settled”?

This same logic is applied to the NAB statements about the restoration of the judiciary. Ansar Abbasi says that, “the NAB…has tried to question the validity of the March 2009 restoration of the judges through an executive order issued by Prime Minister Gilani”. He says that this cannot be questioned because “the Supreme Court in its July 31, 2009 decision has already settled all such matters”.

But Ansar Abbasi uses a different standard for NAB. He says that “The NAB’s reply to the Supreme Court in a BoP corruption case is not only contemptuous but is also flawed and filed by a person, Irfan Qadir, who along with the minister in-charge of the NAB Babar Awan is required to be questioned by NAB in the same BoP fraud case.”

According to Ansar Abbasi’s logic, Irfan Qadir and Babar Awan should not be able to file a reply in a BoP case because they may be affected by the case. But it is perfectly acceptable for the Supreme Court to settle the matter of its own restoration!

In fact, Ansar Abbasi tries to smear the names of Irfan Qadir and Babar Awan by saying they are accused by Harris Steel owner Afzal Sheikh. This is a bald faced attempt to smear the names of these men without giving them the proper right to have any complaints or accusations cleared in a court. For someone who claims to care about justice, Ansar Abbasi continues to be selective in who he believes deserves the right of fair treatment and who is guilty by his own decree.

And after he continues to behave this way, Ansar Abbasi has the cheek to whine that nobody will talk to him! He complains in his column,

The government at different levels was even contacted last week by a staffer of The News Investigations Wing regarding what was cooking up in the corridors of power against the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the superior judiciary but it was again denied.

Can you imagine this phone call?

“Assalamu Alaikum”

“Walaikum assalam. I am a staffer of The News. Please let me speak to the crony in charge of cooking up contemptuous attacks against the Chief Justice?”

“I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”

“You know who I am talking about! He is in the Corridors of Power and works on the ‘Scandalise and Ridicule the superior judiciary’ portfolio!”

“Sir, I do not know what you are talking about. This is the government of Pakistan, are you sure you have dialed the right number?”

“How can you not know what I am talking about! It was reported in The News last month!!! So you are denying me to speak with the crony in charge of conspiracy to target the Chief Justice!”

“Sir, I am going to have to hang up the phone because we have important work to do in the government and do not have time to waste with prank phone calls.”

Ansar Abbasi calls the NAB’s reply “simply disgraceful, unprecedented and unheard of”. His entire column is a poison pen letter that makes accusations with double standards, innuendo, and no evidence. All of this he thinks is okay because his column has been labeled “News Analysis”. But this is not analysis. It is simply a political speech, and another embarrassment for Mir Rahman.

MNA Azeem Daultana quotes Shaheen Sehbai's own words - is this defamation?

One would think that after a 42-year career in the field of journalism, Shaheen Sehbai would have grown a slightly thicker skin. Instead, it appears that he’s grown quite a bit of cheek! Apparently the Group Editor of The News had his feeling hurt by an article penned by MNA Azeem Daultana and has responded with a Rs 100 Millions defamation notice. Reading The News report about the defamation notice, one wonders if Shaheen Sehbai is asking to be treated with a different standard than he himself observes.

Shaheen Sehbai’s complaint, filed against two province-based newspapers, claims that,

On May 30, 2010, the Editor-in-Chief of The News International received for publication from the Principal Information Officer of the Press Information Department an article entitled ‘Differentiating between journalism and ‘churnalism’: a case study of Shaheen Sehbai’s (‘Defamatory Article’ authored by Azeem Daultana, PPP Parliamentary Secretary for Information).

Besides making several aspersions on the professional integrity, credentials, character and intentions of Shaheen Sehbai, the article specifically stated that Mr Sehbai ’sought an ambassadorial position from Asif Ali Zardari and the PPP government and when Mr Zardari and the government denied him the coveted position and office of profit, he embarked upon a revenge mission against Mr Zardari.’

The PPP MNA was given an opportunity by Mr Sehbai to retract his baseless allegations through an e-mail dated June 12, 2010, within one week and tender an apology for the defamatory accusations. Instead of withdrawing the defamatory accusations and tendering an apology, the article by Mr Daultana was given wider dissemination and was published in two province-based newspapers, besides some suspicious blogs.

This defamation claim is particularly curious because the complainant, Shaheen Sehbai, is notorious himself for writing “baseless allegations” and “defamatory accusations”.

Just in the past few months Shaheen Sehbai has written numerous columns that include charges and allegations that he even admits have no factual support.

On 28 June, Shaheen Sehbai wrote:

The latest in the Zardari camp is to attack the judges, on the one hand, threatening to withdraw their Executive order and throw them on the street by Rehman Malik’s executive power, while on the other to secretly encourage General Musharraf to seriously come back and put together the remnants of the PML-Q under his wings and then cooperate with the PPP against Raiwind.

Where is Shaheen Sehbai’s evidence for such a claim? Or is this merely “baseless allegation” and “defamatory accusation” as well?

On 10 May Shaheen Sehbai wrote:

Brimming with self-delusional overconfidence, President Zardari and his closest minions are also quietly planning a similar offensive against the Establishment, which includes both the Pakistan Army and the country’s bureaucracy.

Against the GHQ, the presidency has plans to restructure the top hierarchy of the services chiefs and reports have been deliberately leaked from the top that the heads of the army, navy and the air force may be brought under a Chief of Defence Staff or CODS.

Of course this never happened. Isn’t this also “baseless allegation” and “defamatory accusation” as well?

On 23 April, Shaheen Sehbai wrote:

Inside the prison, the first objective for an influential, moneyed person is to develop a network of loyalists who can bypass the jail procedures, the manual, deceive the jailors, provide facilities to make life easy, bribe or negotiate with captors and judges and find conduits to communicate with the outside world. This is what Zardari did in his years of jail. He developed the hard core of his cronies – a jail doctor, a hospital owner, a business caretaker, a protocol provider, a media handler, a few political artists, a number of mafia-type jobbers, some trouble shooters, a couple of well-dressed attack dogs and a bunch of gun-wielders who he calls as his loyal security guards.

Where is Shaheen Sehbai’s evidence for such a claim? Or is this merely “baseless allegation” and “defamatory accusation” as well?

It seems that Shaheen Sehbai has a very long history of writing defamatory accusations about President Zardari. So why is he shocked when someone writes of him,

The extent of the writer’s venomous hatred for the President of Pakistan, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, is well known to the readers of this newspaper. It can be judged by a recent piece written by Sehbai titled “Why is the President scared of political actors” published in The News of April 23, 2010, in which he sadly used words like “fiendish” and phrases like “attack dogs” to describe the person and the official staff who – whether we like it or not — represent the office of the President of Pakistan.

Shaheen Sehbai may not like what Azeem Daultana has to say, but at least he has provided some evidence in the form of Sehbai’s own words. That is more courtesy that Shaheen Sehbai ever extended to the president, is it not?

In fact, Azeem Daultana’s supposedly “defamatory” article is filled with quotes from Shaheen Sehbai’s own articles followed by corrections. Does Shaheen Sehbai allege that he has defamed himself?

Sadly, Shaheen Sehbai cannot even help but to make some defamatory statements in his own complaint about defamation. For example, why does he write, “…the article by Mr Daultana was given wider dissemination and was published in two province-based newspapers, besides some suspicious blogs.”

Mr Daultana’s article appears to have been published on the popular blogs Pak Tea House, which is editied by Raza Rumi, a regular columnist for The News, as well as Let Us Build Pakistan, which is edited by a group of Co-editors, all of whom are publicly listed on the website. So why these blogs are called “suspicious”? Is this not yet another example of merely “baseless allegation” and “defamatory accusation” as well?

Shaheen Sehabi has been writing column after column of rumour and innuendo against President Zardari and others. His allegations are regularly made without any evidence, and his predictions have repeatedly failed to come true. He hides behind the cloak of ‘professional journalist’ and uses this title as a talisman to ward off any criticism. Even though Shaheen Sehbai has no problem criticising others, when someone dares to criticise him, he makes a defamation claim. Does Shaheen Sehbai believe he should be held to a different standard than his own?