Pakistan in Media

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari created history on Wednesday evening when he addressed a public meeting in Karachi by sitting in his fortified Presidential Palace in Islamabad while warning that he was neither scared of death nor afraid of being consigned to gallows. The president used blistering language and it appeared from the tone and tenor of his speech that the policy of reconciliation had been done away with.

Political observers are of the opinion that the tone and tenor of the president did not match the exalted office he was currently holding. The presidential podium has been used to hurling threats and fanning political divide while the office of the president, as a symbol of the Federation, is expected to stay above the political divide. Ever since Asif Zardari has assumed the highest office, the presidential palace has become the hub of petty political activities and wheeling-dealings.

WASHINGTON: When an elected head of the state, who is also the head of the largest political party of the country, the Supreme Commander of the country’s armed forces and (at least on papers) the man with his finger on the country’s nuclear button, cannot venture out of his bunker in the presidency, a five-star prison of sorts, and attacks a TV channel, a newspaper editor or a talk show anchor, he must be seriously in trouble or scared to death with insecurity.

Journalists lead dangerous lives in Pakistan. They are targeted by the terrorists whose actions they report and by politicians and bureaucrats whose failings and indiscretions they expose. All this is to be expected. What a working journalist may not expect, however, is to be stabbed in the back by one of his own, as has recently happened to Matthew Rosenberg, a journalist working for the Wall Street Journal. Mr Rosenberg has been accused in a local newspaper of having links to the CIA and Mossad and of acting in some undefined way as an agent of Blackwater. As if this were not enough to blight his life and career, he is further accused of having 'secret' meetings with Secretary Law and Order FATA Secretariat, Tariq Hayat Khan, and Additional Chief Secretary FATA, Habib Khan. Both are said to have 'fed' documents to Mr Rosenberg, thereby implicating them in his alleged espionage activities. The story is based upon information from a nameless source and has no supporting evidence. Mr Rosenberg has had to leave the country and is unlikely to be working here in the foreseeable future.

The editor of the Wall Street Journal has rightly and robustly sprung to the defence of his journalist and written to the editor of the newspaper that printed the story. The opening paragraph of his letter reads … "As a fellow editor I am writing to convey in the strongest possible terms our dismay and disgust over the slanderous falsehoods published on the front page of your newspaper on November 5th regarding our reporter Matthew Rosenberg." We might add 'grossly irresponsible' and 'unprofessional' to the list of printable adjectives that may be applied to this dangerous travesty of journalism. Accusations such as this, based on information from a single unnamed source are life-threatening in their gravity. At the very least there should one other corroborating source and preferably more than one where accusations as grave as this are made. The electronic media has recently reached a voluntary agreement to 'clean up its act'; and perhaps some sections of the print media need to do the same.

LAWYERS in Lahore have taken the route of hostility and violence to express their displeasure with the media. The black coats want media persons to remain silent when they lock judges inside courtrooms and thrash policemen outside. If reporters and cameramen continue to insist on their right to cover and report the news, they must also be prepared for the consequences at the hands of incensed lawyers.
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The News International, Pakistan, Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Islamabad: The government looks all set to prepare a code of conduct for the electronic media. Recently, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has hired a firm to monitor the television channels so that Pemra laws could be implemented and the code of conduct for advertising could be followed and the contents of the television channels monitored.
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By Dan Rivers
CNN

May 29, 2009

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) -- The office of Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas has a bank of six flat-screen televisions covering most of one wall, showing all the main international English-language news channels, and several local ones besides.

This is one of the rooms where Pakistan's media war is being fought, and Abbas, the Pakistan army's main spokesman, is a key part of the battle.

I kid with him that CNN isn't among the channels on his screens, and he seems slightly hurt, insisting it is.

He's right and I'm wrong -- CNN was on a commercial break.

In fact, I rather get the impression Abbas, who has become the face of the army's operation against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, watches our coverage closely. One of his subordinates complains about one of our reports -- not the accuracy, but something in the general tone. Perhaps CNN has been just a little too questioning of the army's daily press releases, which claim hundreds of enemy fighters killed, and tightly controlled media trips.

Whatever Abbas thinks of CNN, he is more than willing to explain how the Pakistan army sees the broad picture as it fights in the Swat Valley.

The current conflict there is intricately linked to the situation in Afghanistan, in his view.

He sees Swat as a political problem, which can only be partially solved by military intervention.

He claims many of the Taliban's arms are coming across the border from Afghanistan. I ask if that includes NATO weapons, as suggested in recent reports, and he agrees.

He says Washington is too focused on the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

The United States should "stop worrying about the nukes and start worrying about the weapons lost in Afghanistan," he says.

A U.S. government report last month warned that the Pentagon did not have "complete records" for about one-third of the 242,000 weapons the United States had provided to the Afghan army, or for a further 135,000 weapons other countries sent.

The Afghan army "cannot fully safeguard and account for weapons," the Government Accountability Office found.

I ask how well armed the Taliban are, and he says they are "very well equipped from the border area."

He also conspiratorially suggests they also are getting weapons and support from "foreign intelligence agencies."

When I ask what that means, he smiles and says he can't elaborate -- declining to repeat the speculation in the press here that India, Pakistan's traditional rival, may be somehow involved in stirring up trouble on Pakistan's northwestern border.

India denies that.

But the very suggestion plays to a military strategist's nightmare scenario -- the Pakistan army bogged down in the northwest, unable to focus on the disputed province of Kashmir, a key element of its conflict with India.

The military wants to get done in Swat as soon as possible, but the general acknowledges its troops will be there for some time.

He estimates that 10 to 15 percent of the Taliban there are foreign fighters: "Well-trained Arabs, Afghans, with a sprinkling of central Asians and North Africans."

He also says there are Yemenis, Saudis and Uzbeks fighting, as Pakistan has become the destination du jour of the international jihadist, with Arabs in commanding positions and the other foreign fighters bringing in expertise.

He thinks that perhaps Mingora, the main town at the gateway to the Swat Valley, may be secured in 48 hours, but it may be much, much longer before the area is totally pacified.

"First you have to disarm the Taliban and then re-establish the writ of government," he says.

He admits that Swat and neighboring Bajur Districts "were lost to the state" and that now "we are paying in blood for areas we had already occupied." Now, he says, the army is set for a long fight. "We are prepared for that -- we are mentally prepared."

But they are also prepared for the conflict to be taken to other parts of Pakistan. A building belonging to the country's powerful intelligence agency, the ISI, was bombed in Lahore this week. The Taliban claimed they carried out the attack and Abbas says the security services expect more attacks.

Just hours after I left him, his fears were confirmed, as details came in of more bombings in Peshawar.

And then there is also the risk of the Taliban using the mass exodus of civilians from the Swat Valley as cover to penetrate other towns and cities. Already almost 3 million people have flooded out of what was once a tranquil tourist destination, and the military fears that among the mass movement of humanity there will be those plotting to strike at the heart of Pakistan's cities.

"It's a very big issue -- a serious concern," Abbas says.

He describes the conflict in Swat as "an existential threat" -- a fight for the very existence of Pakistan in its current form. And he seems acutely aware that the portrayal of that conflict to the West will be critical.

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Editorial, Dawn, Pakistan
May 17, 2009
ON the one hand there are the official daily handouts of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) that report 40 to 50 militant casualties versus two to 12 among security personnel, with regard to the ongoing military operation in the Malakand division. Sometimes a small number of civilian casualties are also reported.

For those who want the Taliban pushed back, this news is comforting in that it indicates that our armed forces are carrying out a successful operation with minimum collateral damage.

On the other hand, one sees ordinary people from the affected areas calling in to television programmes reporting 500 to 600 bodies lying rotting on village roads, with no militant casualties. Individuals purportedly from the area further report blind shelling by the armed forces that is only successful in killing civilians,

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