Anchors too get embroiled in scandals

Malik Riaz, the real estate tycoon, strode on to the national political scene working to expose the judiciary has ended up unwrapping the media.

The climax of entire saga, which is described as mediagate, came with the release of leaked behind-the-scenes footage in which two talk show hosts interacted with Malik Riaz in a manner that suggested a planted interview.

The two-part video at YouTube shows footage of the anchors agreeing on questions with a high-profile interviewee during a break of a live show.

The latest development has put at stake the careers of many anchors in the country, putting into question the role of the media as a watchdog against corrupt practices of society.

The leaked-video established that the real estate tycoon had planted the questions in the interview in which the anchors, Mubashar Lucman and Mehar Bukhari, also appeared to be assisting him prepare his answers, and in certain cases mouth-fed him some comments.

According to the video, the management of the Dunya News told the hosts not to interrupt the guest and give him as much time as he needed.

Furthermore, it indicated political scions of Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif in giving their input to the anchors on points relevant to them.

Mehar at one point suggested to Malik Riaz, “Why don’t you start talking about it yourself, otherwise [if we ask] it will seem planted, which it is, but I don’t know if it should look planted”.

The two hosts in start of the programme mentioned ‘Code of Conduct’ for judges, where “as per section 4 listed on their website also, even if a judge is related to one of the lawyers involved in a case or personally knows someone in the case, they should quit”.

At one occasion, Lucman commented, “I’ll say it on air that I’ve been pressurized by Mian Amir Mehmood and Malik Riaz to do this programme”.

In very start of the show, Lucman blamed Hamid Mir, host of Capital Talk in Geo News, for taking a villa from Malik Riaz.

The behind-the-scenes footage became the topic of the town as almost every TV channel broadcasted the clips.

However, the management of Dunya News claimed that the controversial video footage was stolen by a rival media group and thus could have been manipulated and edited into something it never was intended for.

In her slot, Mehar Bukhari gave a dispassionate defence of her actions in her programme, saying that nothing out of the ordinary was done during the interview. She explained, “Everybody in media does what we did”.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=25850

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jun 15 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.