GEO’s London correspondent also joins BOL

By Iram Hassan

Islamabad, July 27 (Pak Destiny) After the defection of anchor Kamran Khan to the upcoming BOL Media Group as the President and Editor-in-Chief, Geo TV’s London correspondent Murtaza Ali Shah has also been hired as the London Bureau Chief of the channel which is set for a launch in August.

BOL has set out to hire the top anchors and reporters in Pakistan and its management has made it clear that it will go for the top class Pakistani reporters in London and Washington too.
Sources confirmed to Pak Destiny that Murtaza Ali Shah has been hired by Azhar Abbas who was Director News of GEO until he resigned last year to join BOL.
Geo’s London reporter Murtaza Ali Shah is known as the ‘blue-eyed’ of Azhar Abbas who had brought Murtaza Ali Shah to GEO in 2008 from The News. Azhar Abbas recently visited Washington for 2 weeks and Mr Shah met him there where the decision was finalised. BOL will formally announce the decision in next few days.

Mr Shah has continued to work for The News but he excelled in TV and has delivered dozens of major exclusive stories for the channel and its papers in the last few years. Many of his stories have set national agenda on Pakistan and the London reporter has developed a niche and media industry agrees that he has single handedly made London the most important new gathering capital outside of Pakistan. Geo’s London reporter is known to be very close to Kamran Khan as well.
The news will come as a shock to Jang and Geo management as not only inside Pakistan but even abroad the BOL channel is going for the trained Geo and Jang journalists. Its clear that the BOL’s priority remains hiring the Geo and Jang staff who are considered the best in the industry. Not only that, several Geo news room input and output persons as well as leading reporters will also be hired.
Reportedly, Azhar Abbas’s discussion with Geo reporters are in final phase and a whole list of the new inductments will be made public soon. – Pak Destiny

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