By Kiran Bokhari
After banning radical Orya Maqbool Jan, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has shown its teeth prohibiting another ‘cheekha’ anchor Dr Danish of 92News from appearing on any TV channel for a month in any capacity.
It is shown the door for leveling false and unfounded allegations against senior officials of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) in one of his talk shows.
A complaint against Dr Danish had been filed by OGDCL managing director and chief executive officer Zahid Mir for levelling “a variety of unsubstantiated, false and malicious allegations” against him during his programme titled “Point of view with Dr Danish” telecast by Channel 24 on June 14 last year.
In his talk show, the anchor had alleged that Mr Mir had been appointed “out of merit” and without an advertisement.
According to the complainant, the channel had claimed that a number of other high-level appointments in OGDCL had been made “in an illegal manner”, including that of the chief financial officer, executive director finance as well as certain general managers. These allegations were made in a “vague and ambiguous manner and no proof was offered that the appointments in question were illegal in any way”.
The applicant said the TV channel also made several serious allegations concerning mismanagement and corruption without providing any proof.
The Pemra needs to show its teeth in such case s and do not allow anchors to launch propaganda or blackmailing. If Pemra regularly puts a check on such notorious elements in media, our media can become sober.
Hopefully after the ban, Orya Maqbool Jan may become sober too… but one can only hopes. Pemra has also served a notice to top anchor Hamid Mir for saying that had he been at the place of the child of Khalil in Sahiwal tragedy he would have slapped Chief Minister Usman Buzdar for offering a bouquet. The decision to ban or not has yet to come. Pak Destiny
Ban all lifafa anchors