KARACHI CHRONICLE: The vulnerable press

On Tuesday May 31 an SMS was flashed on cell phones of journalists throughout the country. It said, "Sad news. Saleem Shahzad assassinated." I stared and stared at the message. So many emotions stabbed my soul: shock, disbelief, anger, hurt, pain, helplessness, wretchedness and humiliation.
Journalists are the most vulnerable professional community in Pakistan. To report they have to be where trouble is bound to occur and they are injured or killed in bomb blasts or terrorists gun fire like other citizens present at the scene. But unlike ordinary citizens they also face the constant threat of being eliminated by the so-called law enforcers and intelligence agents.
Shahzad disappeared on Sunday in Islamabad en route to a news channel. His body, bearing torture marks was found on Tuesday. He was the bureau chief of Hong Kong based Asia Times Online, and the Italian news agency Adnkronos (AKI). He was a Karachi journalists who worked for a decade in Dawn Media Group's evening newspaper Star. He was a true journalist who could look beyond the obvious and think outside the box. He had what in press parlance is called a nose for news. He had adopted a persona to merge with the kind of people who populate terrorist groups: a beard, a Pathan topi and loose shalwar kameez. His purpose to ferret inside information about the activities of militants and terrorists. He befriended many and wrote a book (not off the press as yet) titled "Inside al Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond bin Laden and 9/11". There was no one better than him in reporting on militancy.
You can imagine how many tender toes he stepped on in the process both in militant groups as well as the intelligence agencies that allegedly are involved in patronising, if not actually managing, militants. Yet he did not feel threatened by the militants. He only feared intelligence agencies and recorded his fears that they would eliminate him in an identical message he sent to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Asia Times Online and his former employer Hameed Haroon who is also president of All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS). The Inter Services Intelligence has denied its involvement in Shahzad's murder, but the HWR and the APNS president do not think the charge against the ISI is baseless.
Shahzad is not the first nor will he be the last to fear elimination by the intelligence agencies. However nowadays, where war on terror is a key factor in Pakistan, the incidents of reporters being picked up, beaten black and blue and left at a deserted spot, to die or make their way home if they can or killed outright is a danger perpetually faced by journalists. It is a strange thing that every journalist, man or woman, who has written something that hints at the involvement of the ISI has received, or fears the midnight knock. (They always come to get you when the whole world is asleep and nobody around to witness the coercion). It is less frequent to hear of journalists being threatened by the likes of al Qaeda, Taliban or any other militant groups.
In a strange coincidence, on the Sunday that Shahzad was killed office bearers of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and her affiliates, including senior journalists, met in Karachi to discuss the formulation of a Charter of Journalists Rights. The first point on the agenda was Protection because vulnerability of journalists has increased manifold since 9/11 and the so-called war on terror.
A Khybar-Pakhtunkhwa journalists said, in his province there was no distinction between talib (sic) and soldiers and recounted an incident to prove it. This is something often suspected but for which there is absolutely no proof to produce as evidence, such as photographs of the same person posing as a Taliban and as a military operative.
Ultimately the discussion boiled down to the question why journalists are so vulnerable. Among the reasons mentioned were the weakness of Law implementation; the self-serving attitude of political leaders who will make any compromise for their own survival; and the lack of will of the journalists themselves.
The journalists weakness stems from the fact that today there are few who are only journalists. By and large the new breed, both in the press and electronic media, treat journalism as a stepping stone. They are journalists so that they can be recruited as political workers, undercover intelligence agents, police protectors who will not write critical stories of police inequity and so forth. From journalism they make a pittance while their real earning is from the other work, which they only get if they are journalists.
It is plain to see their wealth is not journalist pay. For example, a mere crime reporter in a third-rate newspaper who joined the profession two or three years ago owns an expensive car, lives in defence and sends his children to schools no true blue journalist can afford. Worse still, they are brazen about it. One of them told me that once when he was employed by a political party he used to make about twenty to twenty-five thousand a month from the party.
It is because of this mercenary attitude why journalists struggles have failed. A senior journalist, however, said that goodness was the dominant trait of journalists. Yes, true, but only if they are just journalists. Most of the pseudo journalists are charming rogues and easily food senior colleagues with their good manners and deference.
Then there are persons in the electronic media who make a packet as journalists of course, but utterly lack journalistic honesty and etiquette. Calumny, sensational trivia and arrogance are their trademark.
The pseudo journalists, however, are as vulnerable as the rest of professional community. Sometimes a journalists working for a political party gets to smart or knows too much and is eliminated, sometimes the channel chatterbox receives threats from the powers that be who they have rubbed the wrong way. Then they turn to be union expecting it to protect them. They claim to be victimised. There aren't many Shahzads amongst us now and that is why one feels the pain of his murder so deeply.