Daily Times

The recent faux pas of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to issue a press release that it will investigate former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for money laundering for US$4.9 billion to India was based on a four-month old column published in a tier two Urdu newspaper. It clearly shows that, both, the journalist who has written the column and NAB officials who jumped on to investigate the allegation, though four months after its publication, lack the basic instinct which is essential for any journalist and investigative organisation. And this essential instinct is that they have to be sceptical about any information they get.

In my opinion, an investigative report is generally based on the following sources:

A disgruntled employee, unhappy with his employer; a person who wants to leak certain information because of internal politics of any organisation, department; a businessman who thinks he has been wronged in the award of any contract; a hunch of an investigative reporter that something fishy has happened; and in many cases, the reports about politicians or government officials are leaked by the vested interests.

In Pakistan, many a times, politicians’ scandals are fed to the reporters by the civil bureaucracy and intelligence agencies. And all these sources generally claim that they are doing it for the greater interest of the country.

In my long journalistic career, I have seen all these vested interests trying to sell a story to me, sometimes sharing a few official documents. Here, it would be appropriate to include an interesting anecdote. Towards the end of the first term of Benazir’s government in the 90s, a senior intelligence official, who I had met by chance at a social event, came to me with a story regarding the banking frauds of Mr Zardari. He said since I write on banking issues in my columns, this story would be of interest to me. It was written in a story form and some supporting documents were attached. I told him that I will further investigate this report as similar banking scandals of PML-N leaders are also in my knowledge. But he was in a hurry to get the story planted and wanted it to be printed in my column in July.

At that point, I did not understand why he was in a hurry, but being a sceptic, I suspected something is fishy. He took away the story from me and said he’ll come back with additional information, but he shared the story with another journalist who filed it as it is to a respected monthly magazine. Incidentally, this monthly was always late but President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, referred to the story in his speech while dismissing Benazir Bhutto’s government on August 6, 1990. That explained the urgency of the spook who wanted to plant the story.

What a true, unbiased investigative journalist has to do first, is to think about the interest of the whistleblower in bringing the scandal or any such news to you. If a gullible reporter files the story as given to him, it is not an investigative report. It is basically an inspired report. The investigative report may start from what has been shared by any vested interests but that’s where the investigation begins. The reporter has to verify the facts from other reliable, related sources.

Most of the time, the story has more than one angle. A good investigative report has to include as many angles as possible. After checking it with the independent sources at the periphery and making his/her mind to a certain extent then the investigative reporter should confront the person or organisation against which the story is. Here too it is important for the investigative reporter or the official investigator to go with an open mind.

To blindly rely on sources that have vested interests can destroy the credibility of the reporter or anchor

Particularly when the news is based on a hunch of the reporter he/she should check it out with an expert from the relevant sector, whether the premise on which the story has been constructed is technically correct. The reporter should be prepared to judge fairly whether the investigation they were working on was on correct lines or that the other side also has some valid points. While writing, such stories he/she should not suppress the accused person or organisation’s point of view just because it will make it less sensational. One of my colleagues used to say that including the viewpoint of the other side takes the sting away, but I am of the view that a journalist has to be as objective as possible instead of succumbing to populism.

In the case of the above mentioned story against beleaguered Nawaz Sharif, neither did the columnist check with any economist the technicalities of the World Bank report nor did NAB consult the relevant department before issuing the press release. The NAB Chief Justice Javed Iqbal maintained that they had only talked about initiating an investigation and had not said that the money laundering did happen. But the moving fingers who have written the script against Nawaz seem to have fed the journalist and also pushed the NAB to issue the press release. Making such ludicrous allegations only helps Nawaz to play the victim card. Though it was just an allegation many anchors and so called analysts jumped on the bandwagon alleging that the former PM was a traitor.

Similarly, we should remember that contradictions and clarifications by the aggrieved parties do not get the right coverage and are believed by the people.

To rely on blindly the sources that have vested interests can destroy the credibility of the reporter or an anchor, the case in point being Dr Shahid Masood’s unverified report that Imran Ali who was arrested in the Zainab murder case had over 30 bank accounts. He had to cut a sorry figure for this unsubstantiated report before the Supreme Court. He must be cursing the sources who took him for a ride.

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, May 24^th 2018.