Moborate

This has already taken social media and even many television stations by storm. I am placing this here mainly for the record. Remember that 2-hour ' Dunya TV Special' yesterday where Meher Bokhari and Mubasher Lucman conducted a joint 'grilling' of property tycoon Malik Riaz , currently at the centre of what has been variously termed 'Bahriagate' and 'Familygate'? Well, here are the behind-the-scenes from that marathon that some conscientous soul at Dunya has put up on the net for all to see. You need to watch this if you haven't already, trust me. After this, only an idiot could possibly take Pakistan's 'investigative' television media seriously. Part 1: Part 2: So, basically we find out the following things: 1. This was a total set-up of an interview, with planted questions. 2. Malik Riaz is not only told the questions before-hand, he is fed some of the answers too and prompted by the intrepid interviewers to say things he might have...

Almost two years ago, I wrote this piece and this piece about reporting on the Air Blue aircraft crash in Islamabad. The tragic crash of Bhoja Air flight from Karachi to Islamabad yesterday and its attendant coverage has compelled me to sit at my keyboard yet again. But whereas my initial disgust with some of the reporting on television was the initial motivation for writing a few words, the subsequent speculation and shoot-everything-in-sight diatribes on social media deserve an equal evaluation. Bhoja Air crash (Photos via Dawn) More on the latter later in the post, however. First, let's look at where television coverage went right and where wrong (contrary to the outrage being expressed on social media, all of it was not dire). Generally, most channels did NOT show bodies or limbs. I flipped through most of the major channels during the initial coverage, once reporters and cameramen had reached the site of the crash, and none of them were deliberately showing gore. I have ...

Recently, the comedian and writer Sami Shah tweeted the following image, accompanying the visuals with the line 'My gift to anyone who tries telling you that fashion in Pakistan should be taken seriously' : I know this snub has probably enraged all the fashionistas out there, especially those who never tire of telling us how fashionpromotesourculture , how fashioninvolvesbloodsweatandtears , how fashioncanincreaseourexports and how fashionisfightingtheTaliban . But I would submit there's another reason why fashion is not taken seriously by anyone outside the fashionistas' charmed circle or at least certainly not as seriously as they hope it is taken: fashion journalism. I personally have nothing against fashion designers per se. Some of them can be quite creative at what they do, everyone's got to make a living somehow and most people wear clothes and like nice clothes, even when they can't afford them. It's the fact that commodotized fashion seems to h...

I was going to post my outrage over the depths of tabloid-y sleazebaggery that The News sunk to today but blogger Tazeen has already said all that needed to be said, so you should go over and read her post . I concur completely. Not only did the reporter, editors and owners of The News break all norms of professional journalistic ethics and the right to privacy, they have also abetted a truly despicable hospital administrator in flouting a sacred oath of patient confidentiality and exposed a woman to prosecution from odious Zia-era Hudood laws that they claim to have been in the vanguard of the fight against . They should be ashamed of themselves. We have in the past protested strongly when sleazy personal and defamatory stories against the Jang Group CEO Mir Shakilur Rahman were publicised on the floor of the Sindh Assembly  and in the media. For someone who has borne the brunt of such unethical invasion of personal privacy, it boggles the mind that he would allow his newspap...

This is a post about the heart-rending tragedy that struck on the Siachen Glacier early Saturday morning, which has buried - and in all likely probability killed - at least 135 people in one of the biggest avalanches ever to strike Pakistan. The latest estimates say all 124 soldiers stationed at the battalion headquarters in the Gayari sector and some 11-14 civilian support staff are now buried somewhere underneath the avalanche of snow, stone and dirt, said to be over-a-kilometre-wide and up to 80 feet deep. But this post is not about the futility of maintaining armed forces in such inhospitable terrain (where more soldiers have died from the natural conditions than actual fighting ), nor about the ridiculous expenditure this quarter-of-a-century-long deployment imposes on both Pakistan and India whose people still die from hunger, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water and easily treatable diseases. It could well be, but that's become almost a cliche and enough commentato...

I know, I know. We've been terribly bad. No need to rub it in. But the simple fact of the matter is, things have changed since we began this blog. On the positive side, far more people are keeping tabs on the media in particular and even the media itself has matured and become more self-critical, which takes some of the burden off us and this is something to be celebrated. On the negative side, we have let our own punishing work schedules make us a bit lazy and perhaps also complacent - it's not easy doing things as kaar-e-khair for so long. In any case, one of the most daunting things is getting back into writing after a fairly lengthy lay-off. Especially, as is always the case with Pakistan, there is so much piled up worthy of commentary. In fact, one of the things that made me hesitate about a number of different posts I wanted to write was because, after such an long absence, I felt the first post should be something truly substantial. I realize, of course, that this was ...

Just in case you thought the Pakistani electronic media was unique in its bittter, on-screen, infighting , you might want to check out yesterday's flap between Fox News and CNN over reporting from Libya . Here's what Fox News said about an officially-sponsored trip to view the damage to one of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi 's compounds, caused by the US/UK Tomahawk missile attacks. Having not actually got the footage that other news outlets managed to get, they accused the other journalists of allowing themselves to be used as "human shields" by the Libyan regime to prevent more attacks. Here's how CNN correspondent Nic Robertson responded to those claims on Wolf Blitzer 's programme: Personally, I find Robertson's indignation that Western journalists could sometimes lie, have personal agendas, cover up for their professional failures and promote propagandistic drivel a bit... how shall I put it delicately?... naive. And to top it all off, we'...

We had internally decided to steer clear of commenting on the rumours circulating on the internet - apparently for a few months now though they seem to have got more notice in the last few days - about President Asif Zardari 's alleged secret marriage to a Pakistani-American physician Dr. Tanveer Zamani . The reasons for this were rather simple: in the absence of any credible evidence (even the blogs asserting this information admitted that they had no real evidence and were basing their claims on hearsay), any comment would be mere speculation and not a lot different from tabloid sleaze. Secondly, there's a tricky line here between 'public interest' and using someone's entirely private life to somehow discredit them in the eyes of some. Although it can be argued that Zardari re-marrying could impact national politics and thus be of 'public interest', until that information is confirmed, it remains within the realm of the millions of unverified rumours circu...

This is obviously rather American-centric but I think journos everywhere can relate. If only I could animate or even re-edit this, I'd do a Pakistan version. I have a script in mind. Your ideas are also more than welcome. Original here .

Thanks to Nadeem Farooq Paracha 's blog in Dawn , we have the first acknowledgement from a Pakistani news organization about our role in exposing the fake Wikileaks (FakiLeaks?) story carried by many publications in the country. As of this writing, The News and the Express Tribune have both published retractions, though the far more widely circulated Jang and the Majeed Nizami mouthpieces, The Nation and Nawai Waqt have not ( The Nation even went ahead and wrote an editorial basing itself on the Fakileaks, which has now been altered by apparently Indian hackers.) I am not sure if the Urdu daily Express and the Business Recorder, which also published the stories, have published retractions.   A screen grab of the apparently hacked The Nation editorial Of the television channels, I am also not sure if Dunya TV , which carried news reports based on the same planted stories, issued an apology. But even more dismally, long after the alleged cables were exposed as fake, Absar...

Don't you just hate it when the facade of liberal, sensible urbane-ness you have so carefully constructed over years and years comes crashing down with one ill-conceived article that you thought would have the masses lauding your cleverness but which exposes you for the parochial, narrow-minded bigot you really are? Syed Talat Hussain, finally officially confirmed as having been imported into DawnNews , must be feeling like that right now. Syed Talat Hussain in his 'liberal' avatar The article in question was published in the Urdu daily Express as an op-ed piece yesterday under the title " Jolie Ka Thhappar " [Jolie's Slap in the Face], and has rightly caused an uproar among most of those people who read it. Not because of the thrust of its main point, which was criticism of the government's alleged insensitivity to the plight of the flood affected - based on media reports of an allegedly leaked confidential report by UNHCR's goodwill ambassador Ange...

Okay, are we missing something here? Are Pakistanis fooling themselves or is it the Americans who are playing to their domestic gallery? Check out the contrasting tone and content of how the currently on-going US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue meetings in Washington were reported by the American establishmentarian  Foreign Policy magazine blog yesterday and Pakistani papers today... First the FP blog piece : In surprise appearance, Obama delivers tough love message to visiting Pakistani officials Posted By Josh Rogin   Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - 4:42 PM "Dozens of U.S. and Pakistani officials are meeting this week at the State Department in 13 different working groups spanning all elements of the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue, but the real action is in a few, select side meetings, where participants tell The Cable that the Obama team is taking a markedly tougher tone with the Pakistanis than before. One key meeting Wednesday afternoon was between National Security A...