We stand with The News. We stand with them over the Supreme Court’s contempt notice against Jang Group Editor-in-chief Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman, Publisher Meer Javed and reporter Ahmad Noorani.
We stand with The News. And we do not do so lightly.
We understand that The News may have tampered with journalistic standards by publishing its JIT ‘scoop’ which stated that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will get a clean chit while his two sons have not been so lucky. We understand all this.
Yet we stand by The News because we feel that the SC decision is unfair. Meaning that each and every media outlet — this newspaper included — was out to break the latest development. That is the nature of the beast. It is not right. But The News was not alone in this guilt. We stand by The News because it is unfair that it has been slapped with a legal notice while it was not the only party that acted without due conduct. Meaning that throughout the entire investigation the political leadership, including all opposition parties, made a mockery of due process and this country’s commitment to it.
We ask the SC why it has not acted against a sitting Prime Minister who is the subject of a criminal investigation when he saw fit to give press statements at each and every opportunity. We ask the SC why it has not acted against the opposition leaders who were so very keen to respond to the daily briefings of the JIT probe.
We ask this because all of the above has more than compromised the tenets of a free and fair trial. What we have seen is trial by media. And if all of us who claim for ourselves the mantle of society’s fourth pillar are to blame – then, so too, is the political set-up as well as other organs of the state. Prior to proceedings, the SC should have issued notices calling for a complete media ban. Similarly, it should also have slapped a gag order on all political parties. Or else it should have allowed the media to bear direct witness to the process. Instead what we have had is a sitting government trying to dominate the narrative, with a rabid opposition doing everything it can to wrestle the spotlight from it and thus change the rhetoric. We call on the Apex Court to reconsider its position. And then we call on the media itself to come up with its own collective code of conduct to report on any future criminal investigation into a sitting head of the government. And, finally, we ask the SC if it would not have been better to have asked the PM to step down until the conclusion of the inquiry. It’s just a thought.
