For our dear readers who do not understand Urdu, please allow me to offer an explanation. This clip begins with Kamran Khan asking the Information Minister for his views on whether the Supreme Court would acquit the Prime Minister. But Minister Kaira had something he wanted to say first.

My views later, but let’s first discuss the initial 18 minutes of your programme. The way you conducted your show – aiming at PM’s sons, family, his character – you have already declared him a convict, and are asking me this question after giving your opinion.

You are giving your opinion first and then asking me about my views, knowing that it’s not the anchor’s right to give his or her opinion first. Your right is asking questions. You already created a mindset in your audience – a biased mindset, that is – before even asking me my views.

You also showed a few clips from Chief Justice speeches in the beginning that were “assumptive”. – “If”, “In-case”, “this could happen”, “about to be give verdict” etc. You didn’t say anything, and yet you said a lot of things. In all your conversation, you kept the thrust on showing that he is a sinner and verdict has already been declared against him. Is this all not an influence on the court that is going to decide tomorrow? Is this not an attempt to bias the court?

The way you talked about my PM, I listened with a lot of patience. I listened to you for 18 mins defaming my party leader and the PM and I didn’t say a word so please let me speak. PM is appearing in front of the court tomorrow and you lay special emphasis on this when you said that “this has become a habit of the PM” and that “I will not accept this decision” even though the PM never once said this. I am completely negating your statement and saying that PM never said anything like that. He has always said, “I respect the court”. His lawyer inside the court mentioned that whatever you decide here will be implemented upon to the fullest.

The way you thrust forward your views is similar to bending facts and distorting them. You build up your opinion in front of viewers and this is a very unacceptable. We go and fight our cases in the courts; we don’t fight with the courts.

Kaira’s complaint about Kamran Khan’s behaviour may seem like the frustrations of a PPP Minister, but they might also be familiar to another high profile figure who is anything but a jiyala. Five years ago, Kamran Khan was playing the same role of media creating a biased mindset in the audience only this time his target was not the PM, but Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry himself.

We have noted several times the importance of media acting responsibly and not attempting to influence the outcome of a case or to create a biased mindset in the public before the Court has made its decisions. Opposition supporters may be enjoying the media’s keeping the PM in their sights today, but the PPP won’t be the party in power forever. And when the tables turn, well, just ask the Chief Justice…

The petitioner submitted that as per a report of the Transparency International the laptop scheme launched by Shahbaz Sharif would cause a loss of Rs1.70 billion to the national exchequer.

However there is no such report of Transparency International about the laptop scheme. So what is the petitioner actually referring to? It appears that the petition may actually be based on anonymous claims in a media report.

We noted last week that the alleged TIP report is actually nothing but the statement of TIP Advisor Adil Gilani that he had read something in the media, and that the way the media transformed the headlines to imply that Transparency International Pakistan had done some actual research beyond buying a copy of Daily Times amounted to something like allegation laundering.

The effect of media being used to launder rumours are on full display with this new petition before LHC. Why did the petitioner mention Transparency International and not the original report by Adnan Adil which makes no mention of Transparency International or any other credible source? Would the Court be so moved by a petition that said, ‘anonymous claims in a news report’? Or will the Court be misled to believe that the Transparency International Pakistan advisor Adil Gilani has done anything but tell journalists that he read a newspaper story?

Laundering allegations is unprofessional because it can mislead the people into believing that rumours are facts. When the people being misled are judges, though, this raises the question of whether the courts are being manipulated by someone with an agenda. That’s not journalism, it’s propaganda.

“As we are ratcheting up pressure on Iran, it seems somewhat inexplicable that Pakistan would be trying to negotiate a pipeline,” the secretary said. “And there is an alternative that we do strongly support — the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline.”

The United States believed that it was a better alternative both in terms of predictability and to avoid doing business with Iran, she said.

In its editorial of 2nd March, Dawn characterised the US approach as unwelcome pressure and stated that ‘America would do well not to link Pakistan’s power requirements with Iran’s nuclear issue’.

Now, another nation has stepped in to discourage the construction of the Iran-Pakistan, but they way it is reported is noticeably different. According to a headline in Dawn, S. Arabia offers to help to tide over energy crisis. And what is this ‘help’?

Riyadh is said to have offered an ‘alternative package’ to meet Islamabad’s growing energy needs in an effort to persuade it to abandon the Iran gas pipeline and electricity/oil import deals.

When the US discourages the Iran-Pakistan pipeline and offers an alternative, it is described as unwelcome pressure. But when Saudi Arabia discourages the Iran-Pakistan pipeline and offers an alternative, it is described as ‘help’.

The difference in photos accompanying the stories should also be noted. The report about the American statement is accompanied by a photo of the President Zardari and President Ahmedinejad.

The report about the Saudi statement, however, is accompanied by a photo of Interior Minister Rehman Malik smiling with the Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister.

This blog does not take a position on whether the Iran-Pakistan pipeline is a good or bad decision. But we do think it is important to ask why the media portrays so differently the same message delivered by two different sources.

But it was not photos of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that caught our attention this morning, but photos of his grandson, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as they appeared in the media.

The banner of Pakistan Today carried a photo of Bilawal to accompany a story about his seeking an apology from the Supreme Court for its role in his grandfather’s death. And what image did the photo editor at Pakistan Today select for this occasion? A picture of the PPP chairman smiling and dressed in a tuxedo.

This photo was actually snapped three years ago at the Women’s World Awards where a young Bilawal was attending to present the ‘Benazir Bhutto World Tolerance Award’.

Compare this to the photo published by The News (Jang Group).

Unlike the photo published in the banner of Pakistan Today, this image was snapped on Tuesday as Bilawal showered flowers on the grave of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

In one photo, Bilawal appears laughing and wearing a tuxedo suit. In the other photo, he has a serious look and is wearing a simple salwar kameez. One is from an awards gala, the other is from a visit to his grandfather’s grave.

It is very unlikely that any newspaper would publish a photo of Bilawal wearing simple clothes and looking somber next to a story about an international awards event, so why did Pakistan Today publish the photo of Bilawal wearing a tuxedo and laughing along with a story about the Supreme Court’s role in his grandfather’s death?

Whether or not it was an intentional effort to shape the public perception of Bilawal, obviously only the editors at Pakistan Today can know the reason they chose to put a smiling photo of Bilawal in a tuxedo with a photo about the Supreme Court’s role in his grandfather’s death. But as media consumers, we should be take careful notice of the ways that our attitudes and beliefs can be shaped by even the simplest thing as a picture.

Two recent stories in The News (Jang Group) include the statements of experts to give context to stories about complex issues. Tuesday’s paper includes a report by Ahmad Noorani about the Supreme Court’s order to the Prime Minister to write a letter requesting Switzerland open corruption cases against the President. According to Noorani, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan’s reply to the court submitted on March 19 “is a simple and huge U-Turn, experts say”.Who are these experts that have termed Aitzaz Ahsan’s reply as a U-Turn? Nobody knows. They are neither named nor mentioned again in the report.

On Sunday, a report by Usman Manzoor quotes an expert economist rubbishing President Zardari’s speech to the joint sitting of parliament. This time, the reporter at least revealed the name of his expert – Dr Shahid Hassan Siddiqui. According to Dr Siddiqui, the president’s address “comprised nothing but false figures and a misrepresentation of facts regarding the economy”.

These are serious charges, so it is worth asking just who is this Dr Siddiqui. According to Manzoor, he is “a banker and economist of international repute”, but a more thorough search reveals that he is also The News‘s go-to economic hit-man against the government.

In October 2011, Ansar Abbasi quoted Dr Siddiqi extensively terming the government as “lying” about economics and bleeding the country through corruption. Ansar Abbasi quoted Dr Siddiqi again in December 2011 as saying “the overall economic situation of Pakistan under the present regime is the worst in the 64-year history of Pakistan”.

But let’s look at the reasons why this so-called “expert” is rubbishing the president’s claims this time.

Dr Shahid said that since 9/11, the remittances have been continuously increasing because of a ban on Hundi. He said that the government is asking no question on the influx of remittances; perhaps, it is a financial NRO because people loot the country’s wealth, send it abroad and then bring it back in the shape of remittances. He said that in 2007, remittances were $5.4%; in 2008 these were recorded at $6.4 and in 2011, it were 11.12%; as these keep on increasing, there was nothing to boast about, the economist said.

Dr Shahid does not explain why a ban on Hundi would increase remittances. After all, whether money is remitted to Pakistan by old methods like Hundi or modern methods like international bank transfers, money is being remitted.

But then Dr Shahid’s “expert” commentary takes a rather bizarre turn. He says that “perhaps it is a financial NRO” and a massive money laundering scheme. His evidence for such a shocking claim? He provides none. He just says “perhaps” and we are supposed to take him seriously because he is printed in The News as an expert.

Wouldn’t it make more sense, if a crook wanted to launder money, to use a system like Hundi that leaves no paper trail? According to a report by the International Monetary Fund, the answer is yes.

Generally, the growth of [Information Funds Transfer] systems seems to be negatively correlated with the level of development of the formal financial sector. Hawala-type operations appear to have prospered in countries with inefficient financial institutions and restrictive financial policies. However, in cases where the user’s intent is of an illegal or criminal nature, he or she will use informal financial systems irrespective of the level of financial sector development.

The so-called expert Dr Shahid then proceeds to make other bizarre claims such as stating that “the worst crisis in the stock market came in 2008 during the incumbent government’s tenure”. Actually, the crisis took place in May 2008. But the government was only elected in February 2008. Does Dr Shahid propose that the government is responsible for the state of the economy as it was only three months after elections?

Later, the so-called expert simply misleads readers by claiming that agriculture sectors growth was actually a decline due to population growth. This is simply nonsense. Agriculture sector cannot “grow” and “decline” at the same time. What Dr Shahid is referring to is a function of population, not agriculture.

These are not the only strange claims made by Dr Shahid. In 2006, Dr Shahid joined Mirza Aslam Beg and Hameed Gul at a seminar in Karachi where he claimed that “the republication of [blasphemous] cartoons was aimed at widening the gulf between Muslims and Europe as the Europeans had held huge demonstrations against US imperialism and the attack on Iraq.”

And Dr Shahid claimed in an interview that privatization is dangerous because there might be a secret European-American-Indian conspiracy to buy Pakistan’s strategic assets.

A point of worry is that one fine morning we could find to our horror that the strategic assets, sold by Pakistan to foreigners during last few years, have gone into the hands of entities owned by European / US nationals of say Indian origin as these could be purchased from the new owners according to a well thought of integrated strategy.

Asking experts to help provide clarification and context to complex stories is a perfectly legitimate journalistic practice. Using unidentified or biased “experts” to dress up political attacks is not.

Shaheen Sehbai was one of the the first Pakistani journalists to promote Ijaz – not after the famous Financial Times op-ed, but over a decade beforehand. While he was Dawn‘s Washington correspondent in the mid-1990s, Shaheen Sehbai wrote several stories promoting the American businessman.

In 1995, Sehbai filed a story, ‘Dateline Washington : A blueprint Pakistan cannot ignore’ that described Mansoor Ijaz as the manager of a billion dollar investment firm who is the secret hand writing US policy. Actually, Sehabi’s description from 1995 sounds strangely familiar.

He and his other friends, in similar well placed position, say they have laid the ground work for the changes that have started to show in the U.S. policy towards Pakistan (meaning others were just paying lip service) and they have been at this job ever since the Pressler sanctions were imposed.

Their claims are hard to be accepted or rejected at their face value but what has actually taken place in favour of Pakistan including the change of heart in the White House, the sympathetic mood of the Senate and the bipartisan support for an even-handed policy in South Asia, was originally outlined in Mansoor Ijaz’s confidential blueprint. That gives his claims a bit more credibility that any Pakistani Government official would make us believe.

It should be noted that this demonstrates that as far back as 1995, Shaheen Sehbai was already promoting Mansoor Ijaz as the billionaire international advisor that gave his recent claims such credibility in the media and the public mind. But blogger Ibrahim Sajid Malick investigated these claims and found Mansoor Ijaz’s wealth and power a little less impressive that what was being claimed.

A self-styled Pakistani-American who describes himself as “ultra wealthy man” with expensive lawyers in major cosmopolitans of the world seems to have several financial defaults, almost no personal assets, and a creditor attempting to collect a court ordered judgment against him since 2010 in New York.

How is that Sehabi did not uncover this same information about Ijaz’s supposed wealth? Ibrahim Sajid Malick himself used to work with Shaheen Sehbai, writing for his South Asia Tribune website in the early 2000s, and he wrote last year that Shaheen Sehbai and Mansoor Ijaz had more than just a journalist-subject relationship. According to Malick, Shaheen Sehbai’s South Asia Tribune was funded by Mansoor Ijaz.

When Shaheen Sehbai ran his website SATribune.com I had written few articles for him. I also briefly assisted him with getting advertisement when he converted his online presence to print. During those days, Shaheen Sehbai had mentioned that Mansoor Ijaz is one of the ‘funders’ for his publication. I didn’t think it was such a big deal. But now after memogate controversy, I can’t but wonder if MI and SS still collaborate.

This raises serious questions about the Shaheen Sehbai’s credibility as an independent journalist, especially in stories involving Mansoor Ijaz. Shaheen Sehbai was one of the first media men to strongly insist on Mansoor Ijaz’s credibility, even co-authoring stories with The News Editor Mohammad Malik declaring the memo as ‘treasonous’ as early as last November. Did Shaheen Sehbai reveal to Mohammad Malik that he had a long and possibly financial relationship with Mansoor Ijaz? Or did he withhold this information in order to manipulate his newspaper’s position on the story?

If Shaheen Sehbai discussed his long relationship with Mr Ijaz, did he note that he had written in 1996 that the spokesman for Pakistan Embassy in Washington had described Mansoor Ijaz as “vilifying and damaging Pakistan, because the embassy denied him 15 million dollars he had demanded to deliver votes in the United States House of Representatives for the passage of the Brown Amendment”?

Or did Sehbai describe Mansoor Ijaz as he did one year later in 1997 – “a Pakistani-American investment tycoon running a multi-billion dollar money management firm, who also wrote a number of hard-hitting articles against the Benazir Bhutto government, exposing itscorruption and incompetencelast year.” Actually, in his 1997 piece about Mansoor Ijaz, Shaheen Sehbai not only describes him as a ‘tycoon’, but spends most of his article quoting from an op-ed by Mansoor Ijaz himself! Did he mention to his boss that he noted in a 1998 article for Dawn that he had interviewed Mansoor Ijaz about the F-16s that went undelivered due to sanctions imposed under the Pressler Amendment?

Two years later in 1999, Shaheen Sehbai again praises Mansoor Ijaz – this time as Pakistan’s saviour “who used his clout with the Clinton Administration and key senators” to lift military and economic sanctions.

The close relationship between Shaheen Sehbai and Mansoor Ijaz appeared in the media again in 2002 when Vanity Fair was reported on the murder of Daniel Pearl. According to the report, Daniel Pearl called Mansoor Ijaz at the recommendation of Indian intelligence who claimed Ijaz “was wired with leading jihadis”. The Vanity Fair reporter called Ijaz who confirmed his contact with Daniel Pearl. According to the interview,

Ijaz made introductions to three sources: Shaheen Sehbai, editor of The News, Pakistan’s largest English language daily; a jihadi activist he declines to name; and — most fatefully — Khalid Khawaja, a Muslim militant and a onetime agent with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) who counts among his very best friends Osama bin Laden.

Even if Shaheen Sehbai hid his long relationship with Mansoor Ijaz, shouldn’t The News have become somewhat suspicious when he wrote a detailed piece last October defending Ijaz’s credibility, and then included this fateful memory:

Ijaz, it may be recalled, was involved in mediating in Sudan during the Clinton presidency, where he secured critical counter-terrorism assistance for the US authorities. He was also the man who worked behind the scenes to get a statement issued by the then Vice President Al Gore against a possible military coup during Benazir’s second tenure. In fact, I personally attended the event where Gore came to join Pakistani activists at a fundraiser and out of the blue ended his speech with the warning that no military coups would be tolerated in Pakistan.

If journalists are going to effectively hold officials accountable, they must be credible as objective and neutral reporters. At a minimum, a reporters relationships – personal and financial – with key characters in their stories should be openly disclosed to the public. Better, though, is for journalists not report on stories when they have a close personal connection that can cloud their judgment.

All media groups are threatened by manipulators, and all media groups make mistakes. The important thing is to put in place processes and procedures that can prevent mistakes and manipulation, and to carry out investigations when mistakes and manipulations do happen so that the processes and procedures can be strengthened.

When The Nation was discovered to have Taliban propaganda on their website, Nawa-e-Waqt group responded immediately by investigating the incident and correcting it. They did so publicly to ensure that the credibility of their reporting was not jeopardised. Whether The News and its Editor Mohammad Malik were manipulated by Shaheen Sehbai to promote a particular agenda in the ‘memogate’ case can only be determined by a thorough and transparent investigation by Jang Group. Whether they will take this step is up to them.

On the front page of The News and Daily Jang on Monday, Ansar Abbasi writes that “Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani would make history today (Monday), not as a hero but as a villain”.

Now, if your first reaction to this is, “Wait…that’s not reporting facts, that’s just Ansar Abbasi’s opinion”, then congratulations – you are correct. But Jang Group publishing opinions instead of news is an old story. So let’s take a look at exactly what leads Abbasi to his opinion and see if he is at least giving readers all the facts so that they can make an informed decision about whether Abbasi’s harsh judgment is warranted.

According to Ansar Abbasi, “The Supreme Court had given him all possible opportunities to uphold rule of law by implementing the apex court’s order in the NRO case but Gilani has opted to be remembered as a loyal to his soiled party leadership”. This is certainly one interpretation of events. But there is interpretation that Ansar Abbasi conveniently ignores – one actually based in the constitution.

The Prime Minister has said continually that he has not written a letter requesting the Swiss authorities to open corruption cases against the president because he has been advised that to do so would be in violation of Article 248.

It should be noted that PM Gilani is not trained as a lawyer – his educational background is as a journalist. But being a lawyer is not a requirement for being Prime Minister. Actually, there is the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs which tenders advice to all the Federal Government on legal and constitutional questions.

In this case, the Prime Minister was advised by the Ministry of Law that writing the letter would be a violation of Article 248 of the Constitution, which says that, “No criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be instituted or continued against the President or a Governor in any court during his term of office”. This is advice that his attorney, Aitzaz Ahsan, has confirmed and argued before the Court.

Essentially, the Supreme Court is ordering the PM to act against the advice of the Ministry of Law under threat of contempt – something legal experts have described as a ‘contempt trap’

If one were to give the benefit of the doubt to the accused in the instance of Gilani’s contempt proceedings, one could see that Gilani has fallen victim to a type of contempt trap. The court has continued to demand that Gilani write a letter to Swiss authorities, asking for Pakistan to be reinstated as a party to the money laundering case against President Zardari. However, under Article 248 of the Constitution, Zardari enjoys immunity from all prosecutions while he is sitting as President of Pakistan.

During the recent hearings, Aitzaz Ahsan went so far as to say that the Swiss authorities had been contacted by government and they have chosen not to pursue a case against Zardari, respecting his immunity under the Pakistani constitution. The court was perhaps frustrated to hear this information so late in the game, after so many requests from the Prime Minister to explain his position and to show that his government took the court’s orders seriously.

Despite the fact that the court’s order to reopen the Swiss cases is no longer likely or possible, they are continuing in their contempt hearings against the Prime Minister. This is remarkable because the court is essentially asking the Prime Minister to violate Article 248, which the Prime Minster cannot do as a sworn member of Parliament, and thus invoking his contempt of the court proceedings.

Others have noted that Article 248 does not only provide immunity to the President, but provides qualified immunity to the Prime Minister.

The President, a Governor, the Prime Minister, a Federal Minister, a Minister of State, the Chief Minister and a Provincial Minister shall not he answerable to any court for the exercise of powers and performance of functions of their respective offices or for any act done or purported to be done in the exercise of those powers and performance of those functions

Despite these assessments, the Prime Minister has not questioned the Supreme Court’s right to hear the case nor attempted to create a political issue out of the case. Rather, he has appeared before the Supreme Court not once but twice – ironically, making history as the first Prime Minister to show such respect to the judiciary where past Prime Ministers have chosen to storm the Supreme Court.

Nor did the Prime Minister request the president to remove the justices as was done by Gen. Mushararaf. Actually, Gilani’s first act as Prime Minister was to release from house arrest those judges who had been detained by Gen. Musharraf.

Unfortunately, none of these historical facts appears in Ansar Abbasi’s front page column. Instead, he quickly moves away from the facts of the case at hand and resorts to repeating claims like, “corruption of Rs8,500 billion has been recorded during these four years as per the Transparency International’s assessment”. We have searched the TI website and have been unable to find any such assessment. Perhaps Ansar Abbasi is referring to his previous articles that have already been discredited.

In the past, history was often written by the victors. With the spread of the printing press, competing histories became written by different sides. With the advent of the Internet, this has become even more the case. Histories can be found that are written from all sides and perspectives – winners, losers, and bitter old men. Certainly Ansar Abbasi will have his own view of history, and that is his right. But facts are facts, and we hope that in the future, Jang Group will seek to include more facts and less biased opinion.

Imagine our disappointment, then, when we opened today’s edition of The News only to find another editorial, this time giving utmost sympathy to the claims of Mansoor Ijaz about his own security concerns in what appears to be a blatant double-standard.

This is what The News said about Husain Haqqani:

There has been no fulminating cleric calling for Haqqani’s demise, nor protests or rallies against his alleged treachery. Today Haqqani remains in the PM house, and one might reasonably wonder why there and not some other place – his own home for instance, suitably guarded against intrusion or attack. But that is another unknown, alongside all the other unknowns of this curious affair. We wish no ill to Mr Haqqani, but might attach greater credence to his claims of insecurity were he able to support them with something a little less ephemeral than euphemistic references to ‘powerful quarters’. In short, facts please. Or is that just too much to ask?

This is what The News said about Mansoor Ijaz:

Can anyone be blamed, then, for accusing the government of trying to intimidate Ijaz into staying away from Pakistan and standing in the way of the memo investigation reaching its logical end? It boggles the mind why the government would want to lose its already tenuous moral ground by shirking from its primary responsibility of witness protection. If the judicial commission fails to complete its work, the assumption of Husain Haqqani’s guilt and the complicity of top government leaders will be recorded in historical memory. An easier way out has already been suggested by Haqqani’s lawyers when they asked the commission to arrange testimony of their witnesses through video conferences. If this can be done for one side, why not for the other? The government must exhibit that it is committed to protecting Ijaz for the sake of the truth, and make every effort to get him to come to Pakistan or get his testimony for both the judicial and parliamentary commissions. On his part, Ijaz also needs to exhibit more faith in the judicial process to which he says he is ready to surrender the truth.

According to The News, Husain Haqqani is crying crocodile tears while he is placed on the ECL and sitting behind armed guards at PM’s house, but Mansoor Ijaz has an understandable complaint while he enjoys the comfort of his home in South France and is able to travel freely. We are not questioning whether Mansoor Ijaz has received any threats, but why are his claims more believable to The News than Husain Haqqani? Is it because The News wants to create different impressions about the two people? Or is The News simply unaware of their obvious double-standard?

This is the worst sort of double-standard because it so obviously takes sides in a case that is presently sub judice. Rather than acting like the media team for one side or the other, Jang Group would be appreciated to inform readers without bias. In short, facts please. Or is that just too much to ask?

While not a prolific Twitter user, Mubasher Lucman has over the past 24 hours been quite active. The TV host notes that he is “not in politics”, but then also posts the following question about PML-N’s governance of Punjab:

Now, this is a fair question for a journalist – are you satisfied with governance during recent years. But his question takes on a different meaning when read alongside his following Tweets about PML-N’s competitor, PTI:

and in case you had any doubt how Lucman saheb really feels…

But Mubasher Lucman does not stop at merely praising Imran Khan, he also makes a prediction about the outcome of the next elections:

That’s right. If Imran Khan doesn’t win, it’s because the election was rigged. Why even bother with elections, we wonder? Mubasher Lucman has already decided for us.

But his undying support for Imran Khan is not the only way that Mubasher Lucman is “not in politics”. Here’s his unbiased analysis of the ‘memogate’ case:

All the evidence that it requires to what? Obviously all the evidence that it requires to decide the case, but with his next Tweet, the Dunya TV host makes us wonder whether the Supreme Court is even necessary since Mubasher Lucman has already decided who are “the corrupt few”. It is also telling that Lucman describes the current Supreme Court hearings as a “crusade”, and not an objective inquiry.

Mubasher Lucman is “not in politics” in so far as he has never been elected by anyone to anything. But he has also clearly inserted himself into politics by actively campaigning for his selected favourites and terming anyone he disagrees with (or just doesn’t like) as “corrupt”. That’s what political operatives do. It’s not journalism.