The piece by Husain Haqqani was actually the reproduction of an op-ed that was published in The New York Times last week. Ahmad Noorani, whose title at Jang Group is ‘Investigative Journalist’ has a response published next to the reproduction of Haqqani’s op-ed.

We do not intend to either defend or reject Husain Haqqani’s or Ahmad Noorani’s personal opinions as each is entitled to his own personal opinions. But we do believe it is important to note a few things about this ‘Haqqani vs. Noorani’ episode as it points to several important problems related to journalistic practices.

First is the simple fact that The News continues to blur the line between journalism and opinion making. If Jang Group values the opinions of Ahmad Noorani, they should move him from the Investigative Reporting department to the Editorial department. Publishing Mr Noorani’s personal opinions in place of factual news reports undermines the credibility of Jang Group‘s reporting as a whole as it suggests that the Editors do not know the difference between facts and opinions. Similarly, if The News wanted to republish Haqqani’s op-ed from The New York Times, they should have done so on the Opinion page, not the National News page. If they wanted to publish a response, that too should have appeared on the Opinion page by a qualified columnist or a member of the Editorial staff. Publishing these pieces in the National News section deprives readers of actual news reporting, displacing facts with opinions.

Then there are the serious factual problems with Mr Noorani’s column.

According Noorani’s piece, Husain Haqqani “accused the entire Pakistani nation as the only Muslim society, which supports terrorists”. This sounds terrible. And it would be if Haqqani had actually written such a thing. Here’s what Haqqani actually wrote: “Pakistan was the only Muslim country in which hundreds of demonstrators gathered to show solidarity with the dead terrorist figurehead”.

Haqqani wrote “hundreds of demonstrators” and Ahmad Noorani claimed that he accused “the entire Pakistani nation”. Haqqani wrote that some demonstrators “show solidarity with the dead terrorist” and Ahmad Noorani claimed that he said we all “support terrorists”. Ahmad Noorani then goes on to say that Haqqani “claimed the whole Pakistani nation was supporting Osama on his death anniversary”. Again, this would be a serious charge if it were true. But again, Haqqani’s op-ed contains no such claim. The fact that Haqqani’s op-ed was re-published next to Ahmad Noorani’s response makes this impossible to deny.

Did Noorani not actually read Haqqani’s piece before he wrote his response? Or is he simply lying about what Haqqani said in an attempt to vilify him? Either way, the next obvious question is how the Editors at The News could allow such a potentially libelous mistake to be published in their newspaper? Did they not read both Haqqani’s op-ed and Noorani’s response to fact-check before publishing them?

These factual errors occur early in Noorani’s piece, and set the stage for some bizarre acts to follow. For example, shifting from Haqqani’s op-ed to the question of allegations against President Zardari, Noorani writes;

…none else than the US Senate itself had investigated this money laundering case and had held Haqqani’s boss in Islamabad guilty of money laundering.

This raises two important questions. First, how can Ahmad Noorani be trusted to provide accurate reports on court cases, which he often reports about, if he has already convicted certain parties in his own head? Is he a journalist or a wanna-be prosecutor? Second, if Ahmad Noorani accepts the findings of US Senators on the issue of money laundering in Pakistan, does he also accept the findings of US Senators on the issue of Taliban ‘safe havens’ in Pakistan? We would kindly request that Mr Noorani be careful how he selectively quotes foreign politicians against Pakistanis because his actions might result in grave consequences that he did not consider.

Things take a turn for the truly bizarre, though, when Noorani returns to the topic of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan and Haqqani’s asking “why Pakistanis are debating the secret US raid in Abbottabad and not asking who was responsible for his presence in that city”. In his response, Noorani asks the following question:

Has Mr Haqqani not been briefed about the Pakistani position on this issue and is he not supposed to discuss that as a representative of the Islamabad government in US media?

This is truly bizarre. Is Mr Noorani not aware that Haqqani resigned his position several months ago and holds no official position, therefore is neither party to briefings nor a representative of the govenrment? Noorani’s analysis also raises the question: what is this briefing about the Pakistan position on this issue – something that has not been publicly reported. If Mr Noorani is aware of briefings on an official position with regards to Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, perhaps he should report them to the public. Or, if they are state secrets that he has been made privy to – officially or unofficially – perhaps he should not expose them in order to ‘get’ someone.

These are but a few of the factual errors and professional problems with Ahmad Noorani’s response to Husain Haqqani’s op-ed. Many more exist. Such can be expected given that Ahmad Noorani is not a professional analyst, but they are deeply troubling as he is supposedly an ‘Investigative Journalist’. How many of Ahmad Noorani’s supposedly investigative pieces are filled with factual mistakes and uninformed speculation? Ahmad Noorani is entitled to his own opinions, but he is not entitled to misrepresent his subjects and invent ‘facts’ from thin air.

Then there is the issue of editorial oversight, which appears to be completely missing in this case. Several of Ahmad Noorani’s factual errors are easily detected simply by reading the very first sentences of Husain Haqqani’s op-ed. If Ahmad Noorani did not read them, shouldn’t his editors have? This would have saved The News the embarrassment of publishing an opinion piece riddled with so many factual mistakes.

Finally, there is the issue of journalistic credibility. If The News publishes ‘Investigative Journalists’ who have already formed opinions about their subjects, how can readers know that what they are getting is objective research and not reports twisted by Confirmation Bias?

We take no position on the opinions contained in either piece. Haqqani’s op-ed was certainly worthy of a responding editorial, though why The News gave this assignment to Ahmad Noorani and not the Editorial staff leaves us scratching our heads. Certainly Ahmad Noorani is entitled to his opinion, but our concern is that his response contains so many glaring factual and ethical errors as to threaten the credibility of one of Pakistan’s largest newspapers by publishing it as it was filed.

Noorani’s piece may be a hit within certain quarters, but people who expect a newspaper to value facts – even those with no fondness for Husain Haqqani or the PPP – are certain to see Noorani’s column as a serious lapse in professional judgment. It will be interesting to see how the leadership of Jang Group will address this embarrassment.

See also:

• Jang Group Attacks Human Rights Watch
• Ahmad Noorani Wrong Again
• The News Report on Constitution Contains Factual Error
• Disaster Relief, Then and Now
• Dear Editors, Please Wake Up!
• Ahmad Noorani Mischaracterizes Zardari Statements, Contradicts Own Newspaper

We noted a few years ago that Mr Sehgal had been praising US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and emphasising the need for Pakistan to accept the $7.5 billion US aid package known as ‘Kerry Lugar’ without informing the public that he had business relations with the American private security and logistics company G4S, formerly known as Wackenhut Corporation, which has contracts in Pakistan.

Actually, Mr Sehgal’s business interests go far beyond a simple association with an American private security company. He is Chairman of Pathfinder G4S, a company that owns defence and logistics businesses across Pakistan including the two largest private security G4S companies in Pakistan Security & Management Services (Private) Ltd and Wackenhut Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd, SMS Couriers (Private) Ltd, Pathfinder (Private) Ltd (Trade and Countertrade); other companies in the GROUP are; First Select Pakistan (Private) Ltd, Energy and Resource Services (Private) Ltd (energy-related projects) and Dynavis (Private) Ltd (Group marketing and publications). SMS Land Development (Pvt) Ltd and SMS Construction (Pvt) Ltd.

Here is a clip of Ikram Sehgal himself explaining his business interests on the American talk show Washington Journal:

We applaud Mr Sehgal on his business success, which is truly impressive. And, whether or not we disagree, we respect Mr Sehgal’s right to personally believe that military coups and dictatorships are the best path forward for the nation. But we also believe that more disclosure is needed so that when Mr Sehgal is presenting his views, people are not misled into believing that he is qualified as a trained academic. Ikram Sehgal is first and foremost a businessman who makes his money from defence and security contracts, including contracts with foreign governments. Media groups promoting Ikram Sehgal’s views should disclose this information so that the public can judge his opinions based on all the facts.

Here is the real photo of Rupert Murdoch for comparison.

Has no one at The News actually seen a photo of Rupert Murdoch before? More importantly, doesn’t anyone at The News know what a human being looks like? The bizarre proportions on the figure in the photo published should have at least made someone check the authenticity of the photo before it went to publication. And a simple ‘Google Images’ search would have easily revealed that it was not a real photo of the subject.

As funny as this mistake is, it raises troubling questions about fact checking and credibility at The News. If such an obvious fake can make it all the way to print, what else in The News has not been fact-checked or verified?

The story Shaheen Sehbai Tweeted is posted on the website ‘News Central Asia’, which is run by former officer Pakistan Navy Tariq Saeedi who emigrated to Turkmenistan.

In 2002, it was not America that Tariq Saeedi was warning about, but a conspiracy by “Mossad, RAW and Israeli-Russian-Ukrainian drug mafia” to take over the entire world. As usual, though, taking over the entire world starts by taking over Pakistan. And these Hindu-Zionists were being aided by a government official who “aimed to undermine the whole foundation of Pakistan”. According to Tariq Saeedi, that official was Benazir Bhutto.

It cannot be said with certainty but there are some reasons to assume that Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, wittingly or unwittingly, played in the hands of RAW-Mossad masterminds. High ups in Pakistan’s military still believe that Benazir Bhutto has connections with RAW-Mossad nexus and General Pervez Musharraf himself declared her as “security risk” during a chat with Pakistan’s leading editors and correspondents just before his referendum campaign.

Benazir’s visit to India last year at a time when Pakistan was going through one of the worst crises in its history, and her statements there which aimed to undermine the whole foundation of Pakistan, generated more than a flicker of doubt in analytic minds. The basic question arises: Who is Benazir Bhutto? Leaving BB to her own fate, let’s return to RAW-Mossad connection.

Saeedi updated his story by 2010, though, leaving behind the slanderous accusations against Benazir Bhutto and transforming America from the simple pawn of Mossad to a global force preparing for a full-scale invasion of Pakistan.

He explained, “The US Navy would be in a position after July 2010 to station some landing ships, probably four, near the territorial waters of Pakistan. They would be able to land and support more than 30000 troops, complete with transport units and fighting gear, anywhere at the Pakistan coastline between Pasni and Gawadar. There would be aircraft carriers with more than enough warplanes to overwhelm the Pakistan Airforce. This is the other jaw of the pincer.”
The picture thus emerging was that after July 2010, the US would have substantial number of troops at the border of Pakistan with Afghanistan. This is the area where the Chagai district of Pakistani Balochistan meets the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar in Afghanistan.

The total number of these troops, Oleg in Moscow estimated, would be more than 35000.

Simultaneously, as Simon told us, there would be some 30000 soldiers and marines waiting to land at the beaches of Balochistan. This makes military sense, especially in the face of the fact that the part of Balochistan that lies between these two pressure points does not have any significant presence or support system of Pakistan army.

As usual, this conspiracy theory too did not turn out as predicted. So why is Shaheen Sehbai projecting the old tales of a discredited conspiracy theorist? The answer may lie in his Tweet.

Shaheen Sehabi recommends Tariq Saeedi’s tale with the caveat, “Don’t know how credible is it, but must see n react”. In other words, Shaheen Sehbai read some sensational tale on the internet and without taking a few minutes to check the credibility of the piece and its author, he recommended it as ‘must see’. This Tweet was not even based on the rumour from a personal source, but some random writing posted on the internet! It took us approximately 5 minutes to determine just how credible the story is.

This raises the obvious question of what other sensational tales Shaheen Sehbai has repeated without doing any background checks or investigations. That Shaheen Sehbai does not know how credible the tales he is repeating are raises troubling questions about Shaheen Sehbai’s own credibility.

Saleem begins by terming the Prime Minister an ‘ex-con’ based on his having been convicted by the Supreme Court of contempt and completing his 30-second sentence. But even in the very first paragraph the author’s argument begins to run into problems. According to Farrukh Saleem, the dictionary defines a convict as a “person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court.”

The Prime Minister, however, was never charged with a crime. According to Dawn, “The bench of the Supreme Court had charged the prime minister with civil contempt, instead of judicial or criminal contempt”. If the Prime Minister was not charged with a crime, how could he be convicted of such? Such mischaracterisations raise the question whether Farrukh Saleem is trying to have an honest discussion about the Prime Minister’s case, or whether he has some other agenda.

Actually, facts do not appear to have been the purpose of Farrukh Saleem’s article, anyway, as is evidenced by his second paragraph in which the author proposes his own sentence against the Prime Minister:

The ‘ex-con’ label, in the world outside the Land of the Pure, attracts lifelong implications including social stigma, vilification, societal and employment discrimination. Social stigma is when society thinks that a particular person has done something “really bad”. Social stigma is the “severe disapproval of, or discontent with, a person on the grounds of” criminality. As a consequence there are severe consequences including being branded for life, employment plus loan discrimination. All in all, these are all societal measures to discourage such behaviour.

The author then writes something that suggests the Prime Minister alone is not his target:

Plus, the day the Supreme Court found the PM guilty of a crime saw a PPP candidate winning in Multan PP-194 by-elections.

What does the success of Usman Bhatti in PP-194 by-elections have to do with the Prime Minister’s contempt case? Is it the case that Farrukh Saleem is upset not because he believes the Prime Minister did not receive harsh enough punishment, but because a certain political party continues to succeed at the polls?

The answer may be found in Farrukh Saleem’s concluding paragraph in which he explains his own theory of ‘journalism’.

Law does not belong to the courts alone, the Pakistani society-and the voter-must also vilify and discriminate against the behaviour and actions that have been declared as being criminal or illegal by the courts.

The author appears to be boldly suggesting that voters should punish the PPP as a whole because the Prime Minister was convicted on a charge of civil contempt in a complicated and controversial case. Farrukh Saleem starts his column by mischaracterising the Prime Minister’s case, and then uses this mischaracterisation to request voters to punish the Prime Minister’s party at the polls. This is not journalism, it’s political activism.

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…

Reporting the Court’s decision, Dawn carried the headline, Commission free to record Haqqani’s testimony via video: SC. According to this report, the Court favoured Haqqani’s plea and urged the memo commission to provide the former Ambassador with video link facilities.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the judicial commission probing the memo scandal could record Husain Haqqani’s testimony via video link from London, DawnNews reported.

A three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, heard Haqqani’s petition urging it to allow him the video link facility on security grounds.

The court ruled that the commission could record Haqqani’s testimony through video link if it thought fit.

The News/Geo, however, carried a very different headline about the same hearing: ‘SC rejects Haqqani’s video link plea’.

The Supreme Court (SC) resumed proceedings on a plea of Husain Haqqani, former Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, seeking its direction for the judicial commission to record his statement via video conferencing that was rejected by the court.

Ironically, both of these reports can be technically true, even though they are giving very different perceptions. The Supreme Court appears to have decided that it would not interfere directly in the commission’s proceedings, so it gave its advice to the commission to comply with Husain Haqqani’s request while not actually ordering it to do so.

Unfortunately, the article in The News/Geo does not provide this information, allowing for the misperception that the Supreme Court believes that Haqqani should not be allowed to record his statement via video link when, in fact, it said the opposite. Dawn, on the other hand, gave a more full accounting of the facts. We do not know why The News/Geo reported the Supreme Court’s decision the way it did, but we are concerned that people getting their information from these media outlets may be misinformed about what the Court actually said.

In a post titled ‘Fragmented Media, Fragmented Nation’ earlier this year we asked, ‘How can we agree on how to solve the most important issues facing the nation if we can’t even agree on what the most important issues are?’ In the case of the Supreme Court’s decision on Haqqani’s video link plea, media may agree on the issue, but by leaving out certain facts, some groups are fragmenting the nation by creating confusion about what actually happened. In order for the public to make informed decisions, we need all the facts – not only those that are convenient to a particular agenda.

We would also like to give special recognition to Express Tribune who, like The News/Geo originally reported that the Supreme Court had rejected Haqqani’s plea. Realising the mistake, the editors quickly corrected the report to reflect the facts. Additionally, the editors left a ‘Correction’ notice to prevent further confusion about why the report had changed:

Correction: Express News had earlier reported that the Supreme Court had rejected Haqqani’s application. This is incorrect. The application was referred to the judicial commission. The correction has been made.

We have noted in the past that mistakes happen, and media groups can earn the public’s trust by admitting their mistake and quickly correcting it rather than becoming defensive and making excuses. Express Tribune‘s correction note is an excellent example of responsible journalism that sets a standard which other media groups should be encouraged to follow. We look forward to a similar correction by The News/Geo.

Geo reported that Benazir Bhutto International Airport would be closed for two days, only to have their report followed by the Civil Aviation Authority reporting that the airport was reopened. Geo quickly changed their report without noting that they were correcting the previous report, further causing confusion as different people read the same report only to learn different things.

Gruesome images were broadcast on multiple channels. Pictures of body parts, pieces of jewelry, panicked, screaming people. Those who were holding onto their last prayer for the safety of their loved ones were forced to learn of their despair from a cameraman zooming in on a bangle, a bloody arm. Names of the victims were broadcast on TV so that some people were shocked to learn of their relatives death from an SMS before they even knew of the tragedy.

The most gruesome, however, was the way some elements of the media jumped on the opportunity to turn the tragedy into an opportunity for cheap political point scoring.

Dunya TV anchor Mubasher Lucman bizarrely criticised Rehman Malik for quickly responding to the crash “when he is not asked”, as if the Interior Minister should wait to be asked before responding to such a tragedy.

Of course, had the Minister been slow to respond, Mubasher probably would have criticised him for that, too.

The News (Jang Group) quickly followed suit, publishing a front page article reporting that ‘Political pressure allowed Bhoja Air to relaunch’. The article is based on statements of unnamed ‘sources’ who are not even being from Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) or officials in any capacity whatsoever. Another front page article in The News reported that Bhoja Air was granted a license despite being a defaulter of Rs.6.9 million owed to the CAA.

Both claims were contradicted by DG CAA the same day, suggesting that Jang Group’s reporters merely repeated the claims of their unknown ‘sources’ without taking the trouble to pick up the phone and request comment from CAA before rushing off to file their reports.

DG CAA Nadeem Yousafzai told reporters that the aircraft’s ‘black box’ could take a month to decode. While we might want answers sooner than this, the answers we want are the facts – not rumours, speculation, and cheap political points. A month is not too long to wait. If anyone is found to be responsible through either action or inaction, they should be held accountable. But until the investigation is complete, the media should restrain itself from making all manner of unfounded allegations, even those based on the statements of unknown and unnamed ‘sources’.

Following a senseless tragedy such as this, the nation is heartbroken. Healing will take time and the knowledge of what went wrong so that we know it will be prevented in the future. Through irresponsible and insensitive reporting, the media is pulling on our wounded heart strings and making a bad situation even worse.

Husain Haqqani was summoned to Pakistan on 16th November 2011. landed in Islamabad on 20th November 2011. A few days later, the Supreme Court barred Haqqani from leaving the country. A month later and the former Ambassador could not even leave PM’s House, much less the country. And there he sat until the Supreme Court lifted the ban on travel on 30th January.

According to another report by Ahmad Noorani, Husain Haqqani instructed the Attorney General for Pakistan to direct Embassy staff in Washington to locate the device and deliver it via diplomatic pouch.

In an extraordinary development Pakistan’s ex-ambassador to US Husain Haqqani has instructed the Attorney General for Pakistan to direct the staff at Pakistan’s embassy in Washington to search his Blackberry Blackberrys from his luggage and dispatch them in a diplomatic bag to Pakistan, lawyer of Haqqani, Syed Zahid Hussain Bokhari confirmed to The News.

A few days later, the Attorney General informed the commission that despite a thorough search, officials were unable to locate the Blackberry device in either the Embassy or the Ambassador’s residence.

While Haqqani was under virtual arrest, officers were instructed to search both the Embassy and the Ambassador’s residence for the missing device. Can there be any doubt that every inch of both buildings was overturned in the quest? Still, officials claim they did not find it. Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps the Blackberry remains sitting in some drawer or overlooked under a pile of papers. But that can hardly be the fault of a man who was sitting under virtual house arrest for more than two months over 7,000 miles away.

Ahmad Noorani’s latest report is supposedly based on the concerns of anonymous “Foreign Affairs Ministry officials”, but it should be noted that none of these officials point to any actual sensitive information being compromised. Neither does the report quote any officials from security agencies warning that any sensitive information had fallen into the hands of ‘CIA, Mossad and RAW’ or that a missing Blackberry could even present such a grave threat to the national security.

The timing of this report should also raise eyebrows. As noted previously, Husain Haqqani requested officials to send his personal Blackberry via diplomatic pouch over three months ago. If the device presented such a security threat, why was it not a security threat three months ago when Ahmad Noorani reported that officials were unable to locate it? Does it really set a security threat? Or is it just a convenient headline?

Perhaps it is worth considering another recent report, this one discussing a new survey that revealed “most Pakistanis feel the local media spreads negativity, is sensationalist and is sponsored by political parties”. If there is legitimate evidence against Husain Haqqani, it will be worthy of a news report. Until then, however, the public does not need to be fed empty speculations about hypothetical security threats. In short, facts please. Or is that just too much to ask?

Jang Group

In Wednesday’s edition of The News, readers who turned to page 3 of the National News section found very little news reporting. Instead, the page was filled with opinion pieces. Ahmad Noorani continued his reporting from the Supreme Court with a piece terming Aitzaz Ahsan’s reply to the court as “contemptuous and extra-constitutional”, and alleging that the Prime Minister has “ridiculed, insulted and humiliated the apex court and its honourable judges publicly”, suggesting that “the prime minister has crossed all limits of decency, morality and civil behaviour” – all clearly indicating a strong opinion, not facts.

Next to Ahmad Noorani’s piece, readers found more strongly worded opinion in another lengthy piece by Umar Cheema claiming that Aitzaz Ahsan is “writing concluding chapters of his career in the role of a villain, bashing the rule of law, a budding rebel to the justice system he struggled for”. According to Cheema, this latest piece is to reverse his previous opinion in a previous piece that defended the Prime Minister’s counsel.

Here’s a thought – why don’t Jang Group‘s reporters stop giving their opinions altogether and instead try reporting some facts? Then they won’t have to suffer the embarrassment of writing new opinion pieces when they change their minds.

But these weren’t the only opinion pieces on page 3. Almost half of the entire page was taken up with a critique of the legal reasoning in the Prime Minister’s reply to the court by none other than Babar Sattar, another of Jang Group‘s opinion makers. And Sattar does not stop with offering his personal opinion on the Prime Minister’s reply, he goes on to suggest that it is “capable of inflicting serious harm on our nascent notions of democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism”, accusing the Prime Minister of “striking at the roots of democracy, rule of law and harmonious institutional evolution in the country”! This from the same man who claimed that in a case of military officers and intelligence agencies using public money in attempt to manipulate elections, “disclosure need not be public”.

In addition to page 3, pages 6 and 7 of The News, as usual, include editorials and opinion columns. But even the addition page 3 was not enough to contain all the opinions published in Wednesday’s newspaper! On page 8 appears the ‘Viewpoint’ of MQM advisor Salahuddin Haider arguing that the government should carve out a Mohajir province in Sindh.

A typical edition of The News includes two pages dedicated to opinion pieces. As Jang Group editors expand opinion pieces beyond the properly labeled ‘Opinion’ pages, the question obviously arises why a newspaper named ‘The News’ can’t fill its pages with factual stories instead of the opinions of its employees.