ISLAMABAD: After careful scanning of reports of foreign media, since the present phase of Pak-India tension touched new heights, the Pakistan Army on Tuesday declared the coverage of the LoC events by the international media as ‘biased’.
In an unprecedented move, Director-General ISPR Brigadier Rashid Qureshi minced no words in severely criticising reports on LoC firing by the international media as biased, and contrary to facts. He took several minutes to expose the international media for its, what he described, “dishonest reporting.”
In particular, he referred to coverage of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on two occasions which he termed as “biased reporting.”
He said the BBC team was taken to the site where the Indian jets were shot down from the ground-fire and the team was shown wreckage of the planes found 12 kilometers inside Pakistani territory.
Advising the international media to make up their own rational and intelligent opinion on such elements of their reports, he said that BBC reported the matter as “Pakistani version” despite the fact the BBC team was there and it was free to form its own rational opinion on it.
On the second occasion, he said, a BBC anchor-person described Indian shelling on school in Keran sector, which resulted in martyrdom of 10 children as “not deliberate.”
Brig. Qureshi said the school was located 2 to 3 kilometers inside the LoC on this side, and how can a fire missed by 2 to 3 kilometers. “This profession needs some honesty,” said the ISPR head.
“BBC reporters were practically sitting 12 kilometers inside the LoC and were seeing the wreckage of the Indian planes, but they described it as a “Pakistani version”, he lamented. “When the reports and the media itself is down to the ground, it is mind-boggling that they described it as a ‘Pakistani version'”, he added. He said, “I think this profession demands and calls for honest reporting.” He also gave a discourse to the intentional media how to report such matters. His remarks about the international media were taken as a total surprise, but people at the helm of affairs were saying it for last several days and in their private talks they were pin-pointing incidents of “biased reporting” by the international media.
So much so, Information Minister, Mushahid Hussain declared some days back the suggestive questioning by a CNN correspondent as ‘erroneous’ in a press briefing.
The ISPR head, however, told journalists in a jam-packed room that he had dedicated a helicopter to take the media persons to the Line of Control or wherever an event takes place. “At least they should report what they saw on the ground”, he said.
He said the two MiGs were shot down inside Pakistani territory, as no pilot of an aircraft with a technical fault can lead his aircraft to crash into the territory of another country.
“We will continue to take you to spots,” said Brig. Qureshi, while some international reporters were seen whispering on the back-benches.
Source: The News
Date:6/2/1999
