Posts Tagged ‘research’

The News sinks to a new low with report on Zardari’s nationality

Monday, June 14th, 2010

The News has sunk to a new low in yellow journalism today by publishing an article that titled, ‘Website declares Zardari US citizen.’ Rather than conduct any actual research, The News appears to have simply repeated a rumour. Based on the content of the article, one has to wonder if the author, Azim M Mian, even looked at the website in question.

For the record, below is a screenshot of the profile of Asif Ali Zardari on the website in question, “Notable Names Database,” taken on 14 June 2010.

Screnshot from NNDB.com website

Screnshot from NNDB.com website

It very clearly says that Asif Ali Zardari nationality is Pakistan. Even if it said something else when Azim M Mian first saw the website, why would he believe it without investigating? Also it raises the question of who sent this website link to the reporter and what was their motive?

The individual who sent Mr Azim the link could have been a political operative who submitted a change to the website (anyone can email in a change to someone’s profile) and then sent the link to the reporter thinking that he is so foolish that he will accept it as fact without doing any actual investigating. Mr Azim should reveal who his source was so that it can be known.

But compare what the website actually says to how Azim M Mian reported the information in The News. He wrote:

A well-known US website, which contains the record of 36,000 prominent figures of the world, has declared President Asif Ali Zardari a US citizen, and said that he suffers from depression and is a diabetes patient.

First, one must ask why the reporter calls this a ‘well known US website.’ What is his reason for saying it is well known? The ‘Notable Names Database’is not a ‘well known US website’ like Facebook or Wikipedia, so if the reporter is going to claim that it is well-known, he should be able to provide some evidence to back it up. I checked how this website compares to actual well-known websites and look at what I found:

NNDB.com compared to Facebook and WikipediaObviously, this is not a ‘well-known’ website by the usual definition. So why did Azim M Mian write this?

Second, the article does not say that Zardari “suffers from depression and is a diabetes patient.” Both of these are misleading to the point of being outright lies. What the website claims is that Zardari has ‘Risk Factors’ for depression and diabetes. But even this claim is supported by absolutely no evidence.

This brings me to the reliability of the website on which Azim M Mian bases his entire report. He says, “The website says it collects such information about famous personalities through general sources, besides its own intelligence and other sources that are not known to the common man.”

The reporter’s claim is ridiculous. The profile of Asif Ali Zardari includes a bibliography of sources that include three sources of information. One is Wikipedia, the other is a website called “Public Information Research Namebase” which is only a blank page with a few links to other news stories. The third is the “Notable Names Database” itself! Looking at the website, it is laughable to know that someone to be so foolish as to believe that this website has “sources that are not known to the common man.” Does Azim M Mian believe anything that is written on the Internet?

Actually, there is no evidence for anything posted on this website’s profile of Asif Ali Zardari, and the reporter appears to have done absolutely no actual investigating of his own. Rather, it appears that this was a blatant attempt to use the media to smear a political office holder with complete disregard for the truth.

Azim M Mian goes on completely recklessly to imply that the Zardari could have taken an oath to “keeping US oath and interests supreme to all other loyalties and oaths.” Not only does the reporter fail to do any actual research to confirm a very public piece of information as a person’s nationality, but he then goes on to make libelous insinuations that the person is possibly not loyal to his country. This is a new low for The News, which should be ashamed.

This is a shameful example of failure on the part of both a reporter and the editorial staff who never should have let such a poor example of yellow journalism as this see the light of day. It does not matter that it is Zardari or someone else who is the target of such irresponsible and incompetent acts. The News and Mr Azim M Mian owe a public apology to their readers and to Asif Ali Zardari for such a failure. In the meantime, they may want to speak to a lawyer about their exposure to a legal case for libel. Truly shameful.

UPDATE: There is a website that says the White House in the US for sale! I wonder if Azim M Mian is going to try to buy it. Perhaps The News will publish an article about how Barack Obama is selling the White House. Because, of course, if it is on the Internet, The News thinks it must be true!

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Posted in The News | 9 Comments »

Journalists Or Political Stooges?

Friday, January 29th, 2010

The embarrassing case of dual nationality and the national media

Pakistan media - journalists or political stooges?

Pakistan media - journalists or political stooges?

Earlier this week a report was widely circulated in the media that some government officials were holding dual nationalities. Only there was one major problem with the story — the journalists did not investigate, and simply parroted what appear to be false accusations. This embarrassing episode raises a vital question about our media: Does our news media employ journalists or political stooges?

Tuesday morning, the headlines screamed across the papers: The News – “NA echoes with concerns over dual nationality,” DAWN – “Lawmakers oppose dual nationality for civil servants,” Daily Times – “MPs want to ban dual nationality holders from public office,” Frontier Post – “Govt urged to suspend dual nationality holder officials.” Ill-informed parliamentarians had read off a list of names of public officials who supposedly had dual nationality including Shaukat Aziz, Moin Qureshi, Hamish Khan, Hussain Haqani, Azam Swati, and Salman Farooqi. The newspapers dutifully reprinted these names without ever verifying if they were true, accusing government office holders of having questionable loyalties.

The next day, the newspapers were forced to print retractions and corrections, but by this time the damage was already done. The newspapers failure to verify the accuracy of the accusations they repeated gave readers the impression that they were true. The rumour was already started that these officials are holding foreign citizenships, even though there is no evidence to support the claim.

The scandal here is not so much that some politician would tell a lie in order to make attention for himself or to slander some opponent. Sadly, we have become rather accustomed to that. Worse, the scandal is that the newspapers – all of them – printed these statements without even attempting to verify the claims, despite the fact that they know good and well that such accusations must be verified. This is a serious failure on the part of the media to perform its most basic job.

Proper journalists investigate and verify claims, they do not simply repeat wild accusations. This situation could have been easily and properly managed if these journalists had done their job and simply requested the evidence of dual nationality from the parliamentarians making these claims. If the politicians cannot or refuse to provide evidence of their claims, is that not a key part of the story? The journalists could have easily called the respective immigration authorities in the nation where the official supposedly has dual citizenship. Surely they have telephones in their offices?

And this was not some minor claim that was being reported. These were serious accusations with serious consequences. The Constitution disqualifies for some government offices anyone who acquires the citizenship of a foreign state. One would think that, considering the seriousness of these accusations that the journalists would take a few moments to verify the claims before printing them. But, rather, each of the newspapers ran the story without question, printing the accusations as if they were not journalists but political stooges working in street level politics.

People rely on the media not to be an echo chamber of lies and half-truths used for political gamesmanship. Journalists are supposed to be more than just film stars lip-syncing to the playback of political speeches. The people rely on the media to report hard facts, not rumours and gossip. If the journalists who are writing for major newspapers are not checking their facts, it calls into question the very reliability of the media itself.

The media should do more than issue a correction on their websites. These are serious accusations that these news organizations have simply parroted. They owe their readers and the accused a proper response by investigating the claims and publishing new stories that state very clearly what the facts are in this case.

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Posted in Daily Times, Dawn, The News | 4 Comments »