Islamabad, Pakistan: There is a phrase “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” This phrase is most appropriate when expressing who deals with foreign media in Pakistan because foreign media behaves as if it is not accountable and answerable to anybody in Pakistan.
The reporting of foreign media for the last three days confirmed that nobody from them was present at the scene of the alleged firing of security forces on protesters of PTI on the night of November 26, 2024. Still, foreign media reported that shotguns were used by the police, 45 or 55 (there is a difference of 10 numbers and they are talking about humans, not cucumbers) protesters were wounded and transferred to Poly Clinic Hospital and some of them were received dead at hospitals however, foreign media has no identities of these 45 or 55 persons and have no footage of their dead bodies nor their addresses from where they belonged. Foreign media provides just ‘sources requesting anonymity’ and eye ‘witnesses’ who are faceless, nameless, and without any identity. The allegations of killing people by the security forces are in foreign media and Aljazeera claimed that the Police used AK-47s but without providing footage of such scenes. BBC report had audio files of ‘eyewitnesses’ and claimed that hospital authorities were not sharing data and files of injured but same time claimed it had audios of some hospital authorities. DW’s claims are similar.
Foreign media also claimed that ‘some injured at hospitals denied to show their identities in fear of their arrest. According to the procedure, no injured person can be provided the facilities of operation and even first aid if the case is Medico Legal (gunshots, etc) and he is alive but does not want to share an identity. It is also claimed that postmortem of dead persons was not allowed and bodies were taken away by relatives but where these bodies were sent and buried has not been investigated by the foreign media.
The dissection of reports of foreign media categorically indicates that this coverage cannot be called ‘storytelling’ but a news report.
The government had been claiming that police were not armed with shooting weapons but entire reporting of foreign media tried to establish that police had guns and they shot people some of them to death. In all reports of foreign media, it was not pointed out that PTI rioters were using tear gas guns, they had AK-47s (shown in many clips available in social media) and they were ransacking cars (also shown in social media clips) when PTI leadership ran away from the spot leaving protesters behind.
There is a dire need for a thorough review of reporting of foreign media and asking journalists to justify allegations they have raised in their reports otherwise such kind of irresponsible reporting would continue to harm the country because law enforcement agencies such as Police and Rangers lose their lives in quest of not using bullets against zombies like protesters but their sacrifices have been ruined by the irresponsible reporting of the media and Police and Rangers who were the victim of vandalism of protesters have been portrayed as ‘killers’. The IGP Islamabad Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, IGP Punjab Dr. Usman, Interrorir Minister Mohsin Naqvi, and Federal Information Minister Atta Tarar were available for media quires all the time during three days of chaos but foreign media deliberately avoided contacting them to get their version before making detail reports and all reports showed how media can manipulate events with a one-sided version of the story. This is now the responsibility of all authorities who deal with foreign media to contact foreign journalists invite them and ask them to justify with facts and figures what they have claimed in their reporting. One can claim that Foreign media defeated the Rangers and Police at D-Chowk morally after the Police and Rangers successfully defeated those who attacked on capital with all kinds of weapons and heavy machinery with the administrative support of KP province.
