Friday, May 16, 2014

The state of media in Pakistan

If you have not that much into international news or don’t care about that much what is happening in other parts of the world, you will not be interested in this little bit of news again from the land of always something happening- Pakistan. A journalist was attacked in Karachi, the biggest city in Pakistan and immediately thereafter he accused the intelligences agencies of orchestrating it to keep him silent. Actually the targeting of the journalist is a regular matter but what set this one apart was the journalist happened to work for the most popular television station and newspaper and had considerable amount of clout among all people. But what rattled a lot of feathers that his accusations that Pakistan Premier intelligence agency under the Military command did it and he did not mince words about it. Usually the Military and the media have a cordial relationship as most of the media refrain from criticizing directly or indirectly the armed forces. But now there are more than two dozen channels churning out news 24 hours a day and any newsworthy item is played constantly on their channels. And still there was muted criticism of the armed forces until the U.S. raided the compound of Osama Bin Laden (OBL) and found him a few miles from that country's Military Academy (no matter what your opinion is about OBL being in Pakistan or not this is what I am reporting here). After the raid on OBL's compound and then the attack on the Military and Naval base, the criticism have started to flow in and suddenly, the armed forces not used to this kind of criticism feel them under siege.

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