Islamabad: The Pakistan Government has drawn a list of 33 columnists, writers and reporters in the country who are to be kept in “good humour” ahead of next year’s general elections.
The Government regards the English and Urdu journalists ‘negative’ in approach and has deployed spin doctors to make them “soft and friendly,” says a report in the Daily Times.
No editor or owner-editor of a publication has been “targeted”, the report said. According to the paper, the new Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani will lead a team of spin-doctors along with his Secretary Shahid Rafi to work on the journalists and “soften” them up so that they soften up criticism of the Shaukat Aziz government.
Rafi has also been given the task of buttering up Khalid Hasan, the Washington-based correspondent of Daily Times and The Friday Times.
Durrani himself and the country’s Principal Information Officer (PIO) Ashfaq Gondal are likely to take up the task of softening the top Urdu columnist Irshad Haqqani of the Jang group of papers.
The others include the Daily Times’ Kamran Shafi (columnist) and Irfan Ghauri (reporter). Khaled Ahmad, the contributing editor of The Friday Times, figures prominently in the line-up of the ‘softening hit-list’, said the paper.
Similarly, military’s chief media manager Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan has been asked to deal with Kamla Hyat, columnist with The News and a human rights activist.
Senator Tariq Azeem, the PMLQ’s media manager, has been entrusted the job of buttering up Attaul Haq Qasmi (Jang) and Abdul Qadir Hassan (Daily Express).
Reacting to the government’s planned move, an editor of a leading Pakistani daily reportedly said: “Should anyone on this list receive an offer of a plum government job or cosy assignment or free junket, he or she should know the motive behind it and the public’s reaction to any innocent acceptance by any of them.”
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