Even when we know about the state of impunity against media, are we in Pakistan waiting for more deaths of journalists or a bomb blast at the office of a television channel before we rise and unite? Are the warning attacks on three channels, planting of explosives near a fourth ... Read More »
“No sir, this is not my job!” I was expecting this polite but firm response from the highly respected journalist Mr Rahimullah Yusufzai, when he was asked by the government to be part of the four-member committee to negotiate with Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in early February 2014. I was ... Read More »
Media in Pakistan entered 2014 under the old threat to journalists’ lives. Caught in bloody crossfire between blind state power and extremist terror, journalism has always been a tightrope walk in Pakistan. Media by default is part of this war for being the sole platform to showcase the bloody drama ... Read More »
Abdus Salam Soomro, a poor cameraman must be rewarded, not only for capturing the historic, although horrifying scene of the killing of a boy, but for his courage to stand and record his statement before the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC), which has now led to the sentence to five personnel of ... Read More »
Three years have passed since the murder of Geo TV journalist Wali Khan Babar in Karachi. While no justice has been found in Babar’s case, his death has not been forgotten. Journalists Beena Sarwar, Umar Cheema, and Malik Siraj Akbar along with CPJ’s Bob Dietz commemorated the anniversary of Babar’s ... Read More »
“Mazhar, I was shocked to see the list of journalists on the payroll of intelligence agencies. It included names of people, whom I thought were my supporters,” she told me almost a year after she was sworn in as the first woman prime minister of the Islamic world, in 1988. ... Read More »
The buzz about journalists’ safety is louder now than ever before as serious threats continue to originate and impact from all sides in Pakistan with the impunity issue adding salt to wounds. Pakistan’s case is really bad because attacks on journalists’ lives and media houses are not waning and the ... Read More »
An attack on Express Media Group’s Karachi office on December 2, 2013, is a direct assault on “Freedom of the Press.” It is not simply a wake-up call, but perhaps, a final call for the media. Sadly, attack on one group or journalists never been considered as an attack on ... Read More »
Exclusive Blog for Freedom Network “Don’t try to become a journalist. It’s a dangerous profession in Pakistan”. These were the words of my late father he told me three decades ago when I was a college student. My father was a professor of Journalism at the University of Punjab, ... Read More »
TV news channels are supposed to provide information based on facts with objectivity and honesty. Sadly, all this is sorely lacking in the expanding media milieu in Pakistan. Without a touch of Bollywood melodrama and sensation, our news today is incomplete. Our news bulletins have turned news channels into ‘infotainment ... Read More »
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