Journalists respond to Peshawar Press Club attack

Syed Irfan Ashraf has a great column in today’s Dawn about the dangerous and difficult job performed by journalists. Actually, this job is made dangerous by those people who want the media to be not fair and unbiased, but only pushing a particular point of view.

The article mentions a particular incident that highlights the unfortunate result of this pressure against journalists who are trying to do a good job:

All too often journalists find themselves in a tight spot. In a talk show a Voice of America host unexpectedly asked a local journalist in Swat as to who was responsible for violating last February’s accord for the implementation of the Sharia in Malakand — the Taliban or the army? The baffled reporter from Express TV reluctantly replied that it was neither the Taliban, nor the army but the people!

In this way the reporter tried to escape the wrath of the real violators by putting the responsibility on the victims. Unfortunately for him, this did not do the trick. He soon received a call from a militant who reprimanded him for spouting utter nonsense and for not telling the ‘truth’ that the security forces were responsible.

The two groups that are criticized in the article are militants and state agencies. Obviously, militants believe that they can threaten and silence the media, for example the incident of the Peshawar Press Club bombing. And there have also been some cases of state agencies putting pressure on individuals as well, not only in Pakistan, but in all countries. And there are, sadly, even some pressures from politically motivated media like the case of The Nation accusing reporters of being spies.

The result of this pressure and intimidation is that media starts to become distorted in order to avoid making any trouble. This can be seen in the case quoted by the article above, or in the case of pop music made in last year’s video featuring Ali Azmat talking about how Taliban is not a problem. In the video, even the Noori brothers say that they don’t want to criticize Taliban because they don’t want to be targets. These are famous pop stars! How can a typical journalist even compare?

With the many crises that confront our country, we need the facts about the situations in order to come to the right solutions. But the pressures from militants and others that have some political motivation against the truth are standing in the way of progress. It may seem like only a small thing to intimidate one journalist. But the truth is, it is as big as the nation. If the people do not know the facts, if their heads are always filled with crazy conspiracies, or if all the reporters and journalists are simply too insecure to be able to perform their jobs, the loser will not be the media only. It will be the entire country.

In his article, Mr. Quraishi refers to the VOA as a “US propaganda network,” but a 2007 article by Shaista Sindhu reveals that Mr. Quraishi had previously applied for a job with VOA and been denied due to discrepancies with his resume.

During the course of applying for the VOA job, Ahmed Quraishi was actively promoted by the Government of Pakistan’s Secretary for Information and Broadcasting Anwar Mahmood who is a key figure in the Musharraf regime’s media handling for several years. Mr Mahmood made calls on Mr Quraishi’s behalf to the then head of VOA Urdu, Brian Silver, who was later removed from his position due to professional reasons.

Mr Silver and Mr Mahmood had worked closely in the run up to VOA getting permission to start an Urdu TV program on the Geo network. The United States government paid Geo for air time in a deal that has never been fully made public. Allegations that could not be independently verified suggest that a Pakistani media company close to Mr Mahmood acted as middle man betweenVOA and Geo at the time and the key individuals on both sides personally benefited from the financial arrangements.

Mr Mahmood also sought the help of VOA’s Islamabad correspondent Ayaz Gul to promote the case of Mr Quraishi. Several senior members of the media cell of inter Services Intelligence (ISI) also put in a good word on Ahmed Quraishi’s behalf. The ISI had earlier succeeded in securing a job at VOA Urdu TV for Faiz Rehman, a pro-government activist with close ties to the Pakistan embassy in Washington. Mr Rehman has now relinquished his job at VOA.

Mr. Quraishi goes on in his article to criticize PBC Director General Murtaza Solgani for having a “policy direction [that] betrays itself in the recent deal and might even be seen as running counter to what Pakistan should be pursuing in terms of its own public diplomacy,” despite his admitting that Solgani “is a professional radio journalist by the testimony of most of those who worked with him.” This is, as with his omission of his previous attempt at working for the organization, troubling as it suggests that Mr. Quraishi believes in a policy “political litmus test” for journalists. Such a test would clearly, especially in a government funded operation, result in a propaganda machine rather than an unbiased reporting outlet.

Mr. Quriashi’s failure to disclose his failed attempts to obtain a job with the VOA in an article represent a disconcerting lapse in journalistic ethics and should be soundly reprimanded by his supervisors at The Nation. In the future, we suggest Mr. Quraishi fully disclose any relationships he has had with a person or organization before he offers a critique.