However, while no degree of coverage provided to such atrocities can suffice when pitted against the methodical brutality of the attack that resulted in a dozen journalists being killed in a single attempt, it is time to move to a broader debate, one that moves be­­yond anti-West sentiments and Islamophobia.

Take a look at Pakistan. It is considered the most dangerous country to report in with 14 journalists killed in 2014.

Read: ‘More journalists killed in Pakistan than any other democracy’

Journalists in the country live under the constant threat of murder, harassment, abduction and other forms of violence.

From impunity to direct and indirect threats by state and non-state agencies, Pakistan’s ‘democratic’ environment is charred by actors threatening to eliminate dissent.

According to Reporters Without Borders, Pakistan ranked 158th out of 180 countries on its World Press Freedom Index in 2014, placing it after other conflict-ridden zones, including Afghanistan (128th) and Iraq (153rd).

There is an obvious gap in global media reporting.
A report released by Amnesty International in 2014 cited 34 cases of media workers being killed in Pakistan since 2008 and ironically, this statistic only indicates the number of deaths.

The structured pattern of abuse perpetuated through other forms of violence, including abduction, harassment and threats to families of journalists, aims to place journalists in Pakistan under a continuous siege.

This has resulted in a catch-22 situation, impeding the development of a secure environment for journalists, which is vital for the overall evolution of the media in Pakistan. A free and open press lies at the core of addressing Pakistan’s most critical issues, particularly those related to national security, human rights, transparency and corruption, amongst other aspects.

Even when covering the 2014 ‘freedom march’ in Pakistan, women media workers were harassed. In Fata, over 12 journalists have been killed since 9/11, whilst others continue to survive on razor’s edge, often forced to move with their families to Peshawar to escape threats.

They are intimidated by violent state and non-state actors including militants and intelligence agencies, with no regulatory authority to ensure that they can work freely. Interrogations can result in beatings and death threats.

Similarly, Balochistan is another region in Pakistan where journalists live under the constant threat of losing their lives, with the issue being exacerbated as media persons oscillate between the opposing agendas of state agencies and nationalists. In some cases, journalists who have reported openly have been blindfolded, tortured and imprisoned.

However, minimal local and global attention is paid to Balochistan, even though these challenges translate to an automatic removal of its freedom of expression and struggle for independent journalism.

Despite these chronic challenges, one struggles to recall the attention granted to Pakistani journalists who battle due to their profession every day. Ironically, social classes within Pakistan itself are so insulated that in many cases they remain impassive to acts of ‘predictable violence’.

On a broader scale, what we see is an obvious gap in global media reporting, which clearly casts a discerning gaze based on territory, skin colour and popular myths.

It raises the question of the role played by geographical borders and political positioning in soliciting empathy for journalists by the wider community.

Is lamentation driven by who has been wronged and where they live? Shouldn’t the world react with equal horror when journalists in other countries are gunned down in the line of duty, irrespective of whether the act has been perpetuated by state agencies or anti-state elements?

Should the killing of journalists in any part of the world not equal an attack on the media community at large, irrespective of race, caste, creed, ethnicity or class, or is the media also driven by geostrategic principles? America made history when Barack Obama was sworn in as its 44th president in 2008.

Yet it seems that the cleavage between preaching one morality and practising another remains largely unaddressed, for when it comes to ‘terrorism’, all roads inevitably lead back to terrestrial borders and faith.

In an era when the media has become a critical, indispensable part of our lives, with journalists often reporting from the most treacherous geographical locations stricken by unprecedented risk, it is time that the world began recognising the tremendous daily pressures faced by media persons across the globe.

From a disrespectful public, to imminent dangers at the scene of reporting, to cases of abduction and murder, such instances abound.

There are few other professions that can draw a parallel to such pressures, given that journalists are the bedrock that defines free speech in the world and are positioned as the natural antithesis for myopic, puritanical thought.

Dawn

The report –A bullet has been chosen for you – said that attacks on journalists in Pakistan, describes how the authorities have almost completely failed to stem human rights abuses against media workers or to bring those responsible to account.

Amnesty International has documented 34 cases of journalists being killed in Pakistan in response to their work since the restoration of democratic rule in 2008, but only in one case have the perpetrators been brought to justice. But these killings are just the most brutal statistic–many more journalists have been threatened, harassed, abducted, tortured or escaped assassination attempts in the same period.

“Pakistan’s media community is effectively under siege. Journalists, in particular those covering national security issues or human rights, are targeted from all sides in a disturbing pattern of abuses carried out to silence their reporting,” said David Griffiths, deputy Asia-Pacific director at the Amnesty International.

“The constant threat puts journalists in an impossible position, where virtually any sensitive story leaves them at risk of violence from one side or another.” The report is based on extensive field research into over 70 cases and interviews with over 100 media workers in Pakistan. It examines several recent cases where journalists have been targeted for their reporting by a range of actors.

Daily Times

The session titled ‘strengthening broadcast journalism’ revolved around experiences and expressions of two journalists currently on a training tour organised by the US state department.

Anzur with over 30 years of working experience was accompanied by Linda Roth, executive producer at the Cable News Network`s programme The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

They shared their experiences as broadcast journalists and discussed reporting being done under current circumstances world over.

Anzur pointed out how investigative reporting was harder than ever.

The surest way of making it possible was through a collective effort by all media houses involved, she added.

In this connection she narrated an incident that occurred back in 1976 in Phoenix, Arizona. A reporter for the Arizona Republic, Don Bolles, was given a tip-off about organised crime by a source and asked to meet him at a hotel. The source didn`t show up when Bolles reached the hotel.

He got back in his car to leave the premises and as soon as he turned the ignition on, a powerful bomb ripped through the car, leaving him with severe injuries. He died after 11 days. Apart from being a reporter for the newspaper, he was one of the founding members of a consortium of investigative reporters called, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

Though shocked, the IRE decided to send out a dozen reporters to work on the same story. `They ended up publishing a 23-part series on organised crime in various newspapers across the country. His car is now part of a museum in Arizona, where children are informed about his courage and strength,` she added.

It was this kind of camaraderie between reporters from various news organisations which was missing in the present circumstances when it was needed most, she said.

Competitive media companies must come together to cover the stories left uncovered by another reporter. This will send out a stronger message to the government and groups posing threats, she said.

While speaking about multiple issues in one go, both Roth and Anzur were mindful of not speaking about particular issues, such as the controversy surrounding former National Surveillance Agency whistle blower Edward Snowden, which they said was `out of their area of expertise`.

Speaking about newspapers and broadcast journalism, Anzur said that the only way to push reporters into writing or presenting a better story was to stop being their consumers.

`The storytelling has to be first class to gain the attention of your viewers or readers, otherwise people can always go back to YouTube and watch funny cat videos.

Roth, meanwhile, spoke about how daytime viewing can, at times, be completely twisted. Quoting an incident, she said once a video of a when it was needed most, she said.

`Competitive media companies must come together to cover the stories left uncovered by another reporter. This will send out a stronger message to the government and groups posing threats, she said.

While speaking about multiple issues in one go, both Roth and Anzur were mindful of not speaking about particular issues, such as the controversy surrounding former National Surveillance Agency whistle blower Edward Snowden, which they said was `out of their area of expertise`.

Speaking about newspapers and broadcast journalism, Anzur said that the only way to push reporters into writing or presenting a better story was to stop being their consumers.

`The storytelling has to be first class to gain the attention of your viewers or readers, otherwise people can always go back to YouTube and watch funny cat videos.

Roth, meanwhile, spoke about how daytime viewing can, at times, be completely twisted. Quoting an incident, she said once a video of aman committing suicide went live on a TV news channel. Summing up the topic, Anzur said that, `Having a free press can sometimes mean having a bad press. But it`s better than censorship.

Speaking of good and bad press, a gentleman sitting in the front row pointed out how some of the recent reporting on Ukraine crisis on US news channels was full of ‘machismo and nationalism’. Once again being guarded,both reporters gave a non-committal response: `The American press loves to reach through other means and tries to explore all the angles of a story.

By the end of the conversation and answering a volley of questions thrown at them, Anzur wrapped up the session by saying: `What you (reporters) do is tremendous. It takes some real courage to report from here (Pakistan). All we can do is to cheer you on.` Giving another piece of advice, she said that journalists in Pakistan must fight for their independence. `Don`t let the government put you in line, rather you should be putting them in line.

The power is in your hands, if you don`t like it, turn it off.

DAWN

What you do not see in Pakistan is a lot of hard-core investigative reporting, based on detailed analysis of public and private data. I raised this issue in a blog on Ayesha Haroon, a highly regarded editor who died in February 2013. “She was frank in her assessment of Pakistani journalism and the propensity for senior journalists to rely on favored sources to deliver analysis rather than dig for facts. It was an uphill battle, she said, to get younger reporters to go to sources for hard facts, rather than resort to their speed dials to plug in quick quotes,” I wrote.

One of Haroon’s proteges is Umar Cheema, who made the transition from mostly political and security reporting for The News to genuine investigative reporting. The change came after his abduction and sadistic attack in 2010 by what he says were members of Pakistan’s intelligence community. The attack prompted Cheema, a winner of CPJ’s 2011 International Press Freedom Awards, to reflect on his role as a journalist. Eventually, he launched the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan (CIRP), which has focused on detailed analyses of tax records and who, among the rich, famous, and politically well-connected, has not been paying their taxes. It turns out that’s just about every one of these people.

CIRP’s work was so effective that the government just released its list of people and organizations which actually exist on Pakistan’s official tax list and how much they have paid. With The Citizens Tax Directory now online, Pakistan becomes only the fourth country in the world to do this, Cheema told me in an email. The directory contains records of all those registered with tax authorities, companies and individuals, no matter if they have paid taxes or not.

This is more than a shaming exercise as some news reports have claimed. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) most recent loan to Pakistan came to about $6.7 billion, and the country survives on its cash inflows to fill the huge gaps left by the unpaid taxes of most of its citizens and corporations. The IMF says an improvement in that record is part of its loan conditions being fulfilled. A more comprehensive look can be found in Sheila Coronel’s explainer on the Global Investigative Journalism website, Reporting that Makes an Impact? Some Answers from Pakistan. (Full disclosure: Coronel, who is academic dean at Columbia University’s journalism school, is a member of CPJ’s board of directors.) Also, the Washington-based Tax Notes International did a 3500-word report on CIRP’s series.

While I was in Islamabad on a very rainy day in March this year, Cheema took me to lunch. He told me of his zeal for what he is doing. He calls himself a “social change entrepreneur,” a role in which he says feels increasingly comfortable. He was frank in describing the risks his work involves in taking on the country’s ruling class. Like many other Pakistani journalists, the threat level he lives with is significant. And he told me he is trying to find long-term funding for CIRP that will not compromise its institutional integrity. I had only a few ideas, which he is weighing. CIRP is important because of its investigations into tax evasion in Pakistan. But it is even more important because it shows what a well-intentioned, determined, and diligent reporter can accomplish, largely on his own, by practicing basic journalism.

Committee to Protect Journalists