Flashback !! PTV  and STN (Shalimar Television Network) were the only two TV channels heard of in Pakistan until a few years ago. The former was a national channel while the latter was a private TV channel.  Today, with 24 * 7 electronic news feeds, high mobile, internet penetration and failure of leadership, the conundrum for the common Pakistani has only increased. As a result, the public narrative in Pakistan is totally skewed which makes steering the public discourse in one direction extremely difficult.

But the irony is that despite all this jingbang, a powerful force in Pakistan has been successful in tightly controlling what people are allowed to hear, say and believe. This “self-serving” official narrative is either tactfully or forcefully pushed, and whosoever dares to resist is simply put to rest –  akin to North Korea.

As we all know, in April Geo TV,  was taken off the air and its journalists were threatened after it published an interview with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in which he questioned the lack of progress in the trial of the alleged mastermind of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, Hafiz Saeed- a snake which is petted by the deep state. Sources reveal that its management has reportedly succumbed to all demands of this ghost ruler of Pakistan.

 Again in June, at another press conference, Ghafoora declared that Pakistan Army is monitoring “social media and who’s doing what” and warned of “social media cells”. He also showed a presentation slide with the social media avatars of prominent Pakistani journalists which some perceived as a veiled threat.