Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan has issued a sort of a charge-sheet against the media on the day when the Turkish president was to leave the country. The least that can be said about it is that the move was ill-timed. Such statements do not behoove a leader when he is hosting state guests. To boot, he also said he is the lowest paid prime minister in the world. This time it was media. Otherwise, the opposition is his favourite punching bag. Whenever he goes abroad, where he is supposed to talk about international issues, he spends most of the time criticising his political opponents, almost all of whom have been either put behind bars or have flown out of the country. But this constant onslaught on the opposition has not worked as the situation is going from bad to worse with each passing day. Educated people are leaving the country, registering huge brain drain. Jobs have been drying up while the ranks of the unemployed are swelling. People of the country have very high taxes imposed upon them.

On political front, the government is stretched just trying to keep its allies close to it. Ministers are issuing statements against one another. Intolerance among political parties has increased manifold and the kind of debate that the country is witnessing in its parliament is unique. For a long time, we have been unable to get out of the grey list of FATF. And now former Taliban spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan has escaped from jail. All these matters are urgent and deserve the prime minister’s full attention. Media has already been staggering from the blow that the country’s financial crisis has served it. Jobs have been lost, and channels shut down. A fresh charge-sheet is the last thing that is expected from the government at this time. The power of media was instrumental in bringing PTI to the highest office in the country. People have the right to information and it is the responsibility of the media to protect this right. In this age, the people cannot live cut off from the rest of the world. Hence, we remind the prime minister that the focus of his attention should be the real problems and their solutions. Let the media do its job. *