ISLAMABAD: After the media faced the worst attacks at the hands of PTI workers on Monday, the party chief Imran Khan, instead of apologising, in an unfortunate move indirectly instigated his workers to continue attacking Geo and Jang Group journalists and also provided them with the incorrect excuse that Geo’s reporting was biased.
As it is, Geo and the Jang Group have stated that Imran Khan is targeting them to “achieve an objective.”A majority of credible analysts agree that the basic objective of Imran Khan by continuously targeting Geo and the Jang Group is to create doubts and a wrong impression in the minds of his workers and activists. This is done so they don’t trust Geo programmes, which are of the highest standard of reporting and carry the best and most impartial analyses presented by Geo and Jang Group reporters, analysts, commentators and senior journalists. These Geo and Jang Group journalists are also appreciated at times by the PTI chief but he wants his workers not to read or listen to them as such a ‘bad habit’ of listening to or reading independent and impartial media reporting and analyses can lead them to make independent decisions and auditing party accounts and starting questions wrong acts and contradictions of leadership.
The PTI chief had suddenly increased his criticism of Geo and Jang Group, its journalists and top management right after attack on Hamid Mir in Karachi on April 19, 2014. He started leveling allegations against Geo News on a daily basis and suddenly started a campaign to topple the federal government though before this he was simply demanding electoral reforms and was publicly announcing that he accepted the PML-N government and will not let it down.
Keeping in view credibility and deep penetration of Geo and Jang Group into the general public and love of people of Pakistan for Geo News and Daily Jang and The News, Imran Khan considered it necessary to try to discredit the Pakistan’s biggest media group in order to create disorder in Pakistan and also to create disenchantment among the Pakistanis abroad, but Pakistanis at large rejected his attempts and only forceful closure of Geo helped PTI chief for few days.
Imran Khan missed no opportunity to attack and defame Geo and Jang Group and its journalists. He attacked the persons of working journalists and prompted and instigated the general public to attack Geo and Jang Group journalists.
Imran still has to appear before courts and prove the allegations he has leveled against Geo and Jang Group, its journalists and its management and he knows very well that if he failed to prove the allegations in court of law he will have to face the long arm of law.
In an important development the spokesman for Geo and Jang group Monday announced that the group was taking the PTI chief to court. He expressed the hope that Imran Khan will present all evidences of his allegation before the court on the first date of hearing instead of requesting courts to adjourn case for long dates of hearings.
The spokesman announced in categorical terms that after the latest allegations, Jang Group was registering civil as well as criminal cases against Imran Khan. The spokesman said Imran Khan uses the name of Almighty Allah and contradicts and violates His orders in the moment by making false allegations against others without any proof.
The spokesman said the latest complaint of PTI chief was due to participation of newly elected MPA from Bhakkar Inamullah Khan Niazi in Geo News programme “Khabarnaak” who is a relative of PTI chief but his many views about him are not liked by Imran.
Just like this, the PTI chief is also very much angry at his another relative Hafeezullah Khan Niazi, who also writes columns in Daily Jang and his views about Imran’s wrong policies are also not liked by the PTI chief. There are also other analysts and writers in Jang-Geo Group who are praised by Imran Khan.
During day time on Monday, Imran while talking to a private TV channel said Geo journalists were being attacked because of wrong reporting. However, in the night, while addressing the sit-in at the Chairing Cross, the PTI chief held Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman responsible for everything.
The spokesman further said Imran Khan’s statement that journalists do journalism after dictation was the worst ever allegation against professional journalists and an unforgivable attack on the independence of media and respect and dignity of working journalists.
The spokesman said as usual the PTI chief was leveling allegations to “achieve an objective and target” without any proof and he simply doesn’t know that Geo and Jang Group have not only been fully implementing Wage Board Award, but also in many cases paying much more than that.
The PTI chief continued with his usual rhetoric on Monday not knowing that he was repeating lies for countless time and said Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman was taking money from Nawaz Sharif, had become a pharaoh and not paying journalists.
He does not know that all this is absolutely wrong and Jang Group has been implementing the Wage Board Award in letter and spirit. Imran even said he will fight with working journalists to get wage board award implemented though in the same breath he had termed journalists corrupt by saying that they work under pressure and take dictation.
Imran Khan went to the extent of instigating his workers to attack Geo and Jang Group journalists saying that it was because of Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman that people were angry and attacking the group’s reporters and anchors. The objective of all efforts of PTI chief was to fill the minds of PTI workers with hate against Geo and Jang Group so they may not listen, watch or read the independent news analyses about their party’s leadership and party accounts.
Imran Khan started accusing and attacking working journalists and leveling allegations against them after his favourite anchor and channel, who are nowadays seeking apologies from courts, leveled similar allegations without any proof.
This anchor and his channel are now seeking an apology from everyone. Once forgiven, they again started leveling new false and baseless allegations to create sensation and earn more money.
The PTI chief is blindly following them to “achieve the same target” but the people of Pakistan will become aware of truth when Imran Khan appears before court after few days and will be asked to present evidences in support of his allegations.
Crossing all limits of decency and setting aside all principles of a democratic and civilised society, Imran even said that Geo and Jang should not cover the PTI events.There is no example of such rough attitude in the present political history. He continuously promoted PTI workers to attack Geo and Jang Group journalists by repeating words that people were angry because of Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman and wrong reporting of Geo.
In continuation of leveling baseless allegations without presenting any evidence, the PTI chief alleged that the Editor-in-Chief of Jang Group was involved in tax evasion and benefited fully from Nawaz Sharif.
“Bosses like Mir are billionaires but they don’t pay salaries to journalists. I shall fight with all of them,” he declared. Imran Khan is unaware of the fact that Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman is 29th highest tax payer of the country and his tax is not only more than the tax of any other media house owner, but also more than the collective tax of leading media houses owners. Not only this, the total tax paid by Geo and Jang Group is much more than the collective taxes paid by all other leading media organizations.
It is important to mention that the owners of some other media groups own many other non-media businesses and started media business to gain more influence over governments but still their taxes are very little and the PTI chief shied away from speaking truth on this point and continues to speak lies as some of these other media groups support Imran Kahn for “achieving that certain target”. Now the PTI chief will have to prove this tax evasion in the court of law after a few days.
Keeping aside Imran Khan’s tirade against Geo and Jang Group journalists and management on Monday when at one stage Geo News aired news about some closed markets in Lahore, the PML-N’s social media team launched an attack on Geo and even started abusing and cursing the channel and its journalists.
Imran Khan may be unaware of such happenings. While both PTI and PML-N continued to attack Geo News because of news items they didn’t like, Geo News continued unbiased and impartial reporting and excellently covered different places of Lahore.
The post Defaming, blaming Jang-Geo Group Imran’s tactics appeared first on Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF).
