Attacks on Pakistani Journalist and Miscommunication

Journalism under attack in Pakistan

I was sad to hear the news about the alleged attack on a senior Pakistani journalist Hamid Meer in Karachi. Fortunately he survived the attack, but he was injured and was admitted to local a hospital. According to recent news from his doctors he got hit by 6 bullets, he was operated and the operation was successful, he is out of critical condition and is now recovering in hospital.

Journalism has been under attack in Pakistan for a very long time. This threat has notoriously brought Pakistan to 10th most dangerous country for journalists. Extremists are to be blamed for this issue they not only want to force their false religious beliefs but punish anyone who thinks otherwise or even generate an independent opinion.

Miscommunication

I was shocked to see many twitter and facebook responses about his attack. One of the most shocking opinion flowing on twitter was that, he is a notorious journalist who got what he deserved. This all started when ISI a Pakistani intelligence agency was thought to be blamed for the attack. As the discussion on the issue was shown live on local news channel where Hamid Meer worked, the picture of chief of ISI was shown live while the blame was being discussed. This was based on the statement given by Hamid Meer to many of his colleagues. This changed the opinions of the people of twitter from condolences to hate towards the TV channel. This show the immaturity of both the TV channel and people on twitter. As a student of law, I have develop an understanding towards a very widely spoken term "Innocent until proven guilty"  and I believe in that too, but sadly many twitter followers started accusing the TV channel for defaming a state defence agency  and armed forced without investigating the whole issue. At the same time, some TV anchors on the GEO TV channel started blaming the lack of security directly on intelligence and military organisation of state and showed the picture of chief of the agency during the blame discussion. The TV channel should have understood the gravity of the situation and the miscommunication that could be the result of this and should have shown the program accordingly to avoid any mishap. This miscommunication caused the flood of hatred tweets and facebook posts not only towards the TV channel but the journalist Hamid Meer as well. This hatred reach to a point where GEO news and Jung group had to issue a clear statement to deny any such misconception caused by the miscommunication, had they been careful and followed proper journalistic code while reporting and discussing the attack this whole incident could have been avoided.