The Sorry State of Fact Checking

The saddest fact about Pakistani media today, be it print media or electronic, is that everyone is free to peddle whatever horse-manure they want to present as facts and no one questions them. One can bear these pseudo facts being paddled by tabloid writers. But when someone who is called a senior analyst, who has also been a federal minister of Pakistan, is writing things without doing due diligence, one wonders where are the people whose job is it to scrutinize every thing being published as a fact.

Case in question; the column by Dr. Babar Awan in Dunya Newspaper. He has leveled so many allegations, like Nawaz Sharif's stay in New York costimg $18,000 per night and also every cab in NYC brandishing "Go Nawaz Go" label. Here is the column he wrote

http://e.dunya.com.pk/colum.php?date=2014-09-29&edition=LHR&id=37809_52056642

I have written enough already about the hotel cost. Let me talk about "Har Taxi per Go Nawaz Go ka board laga tha". Someone posted a photo-shopped picture of an NYC cab advertising "Go Nawaz Go" and Dr. Babur Awan got so excited looking at that tempered image that he proclaimed that EVERY taxi cab in NYC was displaying that. Well, I was there in that city that day and I didn't see a single taxi cab with that advertisement; most of them were still displaying ads for strip clubs.

Dr. Babur Awan thinks that every Pakistani cab driver can display whatever he wants on his cab. That is not the case. Taxi cabs in New York City are regulated by the Taxi & Limousine Commission (T&LC  and that is inscribed on the license plate of every cab in NYC) and no cab driver can display anything on the cab without the approval of T&LC. If they had done that, as Dr. Babur Awan is saying that they did, they would have lost their driving licenses by the next day.

This may seem like a trivial and frivolous issue but it's symptomatic of a very troubling trend. Pakistan has suffered long enough of "creative" reporting of  history. In past few years that creative reporting has been increasingly creeping into current affairs. It's troubling and dangerous because a nation mired into identity crises and looking to get it's bearing needs to at least have their facts reported correctly.

This is  not an individual problem, it is an institutional one. An individual can write whatever their fancy. Dr. Babur Awan can write that angels were descending on New York with "Go Nawaz Go" placards. It's the responsibility of the institution that is sending those words to the press to verify what is being published. Western news outlets have someone called a "content editor" whose primary job is to verify the facts being published. Back in the days when I was a journalist in Pakistan, we didn't have content editors but it was common for a news editor or editor to circle a piece in an article with red and ask the reporter or the writer if that part was verified by the writer.

I am of firm belief that that tradition must have gone by the wayside too because in two days, the day Dr. Babar Awan's article got published and the day before, in the same opinion page of the same newspaper, three writers quoted three different room rates for Waldorf Astoria hotel. All three were wrong but even if one was correct, the other two had to be wrong which made me wonder, what was the editor of the opinion page smoking? Why didn't he/she asked these three writers how come their "facts" didn't match each other, let alone matching the
reality.

No wonder that Pakistani journalism is going through an epic credibility crises of unprecedented proportion which makes people like me sad to the core who once prided themselves of once having some link to the journalistic profession of Pakistan.

Faux Hotel

A lot of hot air, which has left me somewhat dumbfounded, has been hitting the airwaves in Pakistan about Nawaz Sharif's choice of hotel while he is here in New York attending UN General Assembly's annual session.

Before I get to that, let's clear some of the fundamentals out of the way that may sound irrelevant but are not.

Let's start with United States Secret Service. It's a federal agency working under United States Department of Homeland Security. The Secret Service is responsible for the security of the president of the United States, president's immediate family, the vice-president and his/her immediate family. This protection is not just while they are in the office; it is for life. So, the Secret Service protects all the living ex-presidents, all ex-vice presidents and so on and so forth.

An additional responsibility of the Secret Service is to protect the visiting heads of states. If you are Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Secret Service will protect you while you are in United States. They will provide you the same kind of protection that they provide to the President of the United States.

And they would love it if you are not staying in New York City (NYC). Why?

A routine protection regimen for a visiting head of a state staying at a hotel means the Secret Service would make regular electronic and canine sweeps of the hotel lobby, the room he/she is staying in, the floor he/she is staying at and the elevators in that hotel. But if that dignitary is staying in a hotel in NYC, it becomes even more complicated. Anyone familiar with NYC can tell you that the hotels in NYC do not have parking spaces (real-estate is expensive) which means that if you are Nawaz Sharif, the Secret Service would have to drive your car right in front of the hotel entrance, you would get out of the car, take a few steps to the hotel entrance...and for those few steps, you would be exposed to a sniper and the Secret Service does not like that. What they do in this situation is that they occupy part of the street, put up a tent that covers width and breadth of the distance between the car and the hotel entrance and thus ensure that when you step out of the car and enter the hotel, you are invisible to a potential sniper on a high-rise looking for you. It's not perfect but it's the best they can do. On top of that, they put snipers on the buildings around the hotel to return any fire when you are leaving the hotel or coming back.

One can imagine how cumbersome that is. One can also imagine how cumbersome it would further become if the Secret Service has to do all that for not just one head of a state but close to 120 heads of states at the same time. That is what they have to do whenever all these world leaders descend on New York on such UN sessions.

If everyone of these leaders decides to stay in a separate hotel, the Secret Service would have to do all that described above 120 times. That's a logistic nightmare. So, what do they do? They give every visiting head of the state a list of recommended hotels to stay at in NYC. A lot of factors must be considered for such a list; the location of the hotel, the route from the hotel to UN and back etc. Nawaz Sharif chose Waldorf Astoria Hotel to stay. And the airwaves in Pakistan are filled with, mainly, two allegations;

1-) Waldorf Astoria is the most expensive hotel in New York
2-) The room NS is staying at is $8,000/night

Waldorf Astoria is NOT the most expensive hotel in NYC. Ritz-Carlton, The Plaza, Four-Seasons, St. Regis, all of them are more expensive than Waldorf Astoria. In fact, according to a past article by Business Insider, Waldorf Astoria is the 10th most expensive hotel in NYC. I checked their website today, and called to confirm, and their Tower Suite, the most expensive they have, is $529/night. But, hang on. There is this Presidential Suite. That goes for about $7,000 to $10,000/night. And one of the anchors in Pakistan, who yells at her audience instead of talking to them, showed the pictures of that suite in her program saying this is where Nawaz Sharif was staying. That makes sense!! He is staying at the Presidential Suite...

But, no, he cannot be.

Why?

Well, the Presidential Suite is called "presidential" for a reason. Whenever the President of the United States is in New York, that's where he stays  (that is why it is called "White House of Manhattan"). This suite has hosted every president from Herbart Hoover (1931) to Barack Obama (2014). Whoever pays $7,000 to $10,000 per night for this suite is not paying that money for the luxury but for the history of this place and for the bragging rights. Nawaz Sharif cannot be staying there because, on those very days while he would be in NYC, Barack Obama will be staying there.

Which begs the question: if Waldorf Astoria is not the most expensive hotel in NYC, then why every president of the United States chooses that hotel to be his abode while staying in NYC.

Waldorf Astoria has a unique feature that makes it the most favorite hotel in NYC for the Secret Service.  Recall the tent for the arrival of the person they are protecting; Waldorf Astoria has a driveway that goes right beneath the hotel building with an entrance to the hotel, which makes it much more secure than a tent.

I passed by the Ritz-Carlton yesterday, a more expensive hotel than Waldorf Astoria, and there was much more activity outside that hotel than what I observed outside Waldorf Astoria today, which is right across my office. That tells me that there are many more dignities staying at Ritz-Carlton than there are at Waldorf Astoria. But then I can't call them to ask to confirm since that would be the most certain way to have a knock at my door by a couple of Secret Service agents asking me why I wanted to know that.

I do not have access to some classified source. All of the above is common knowledge among New Yorkers. Any journalist or anchor in Pakistan could find all that out by browsing the net and talking to someone in New York in less than two hours. I wonder why no one bothered. Is it just laziness or has the entire media become Imran Khan: what is whispered in the ear comes right out of the mouth without a moment's hesitation?

Dear Professor Imran Khan

These days, a couple of experts in Political Philosophy are lecturing people of Pakistan about what "True Democracy" means by citing, according to them, the fundamentals of "True Democracy". The principles they keep on repeating have little or nothing to do with the idea that is democracy. Those principles are about good governance and the rule of law; none of which requires "true democracy" as a prerequisite.

I am going to ignore Alama Tahir-ul-Qadri in his quest for his dream system. He is too smart for the likes of Pakistani people. I am going to focus on Professor Imran Khan, ignorant of history (I can prove that) and ignorant of the dynamics of polling day (I can prove that too) who keeps claiming to know EVERYTHING (he said, "yeh police walay bhi Tehreek-e-Insaaf ke saath hain" before he accused the same policemen of murdering people whose dead-bodies are yet to be found) and who keeps telling people of Pakistan that he knows what "True Democracy" means  (citing Scandinavian countries.)

Democracy, as an idea, embodies some very fundamental tenants. One of them is, "the will of the people would be the supreme law." That one rule means that a true democracy HAS to be Secular. When a state adopts a faith, it disenfranchises a large number of the populace. When the constitution of a country says, "Sovereignty over the entire Universe belongs to Almighty Allah alone, and the authority to be exercised by the people of Pakistan within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust;", that's not true democracy Doctor Imran Khan. That is not a democracy being practiced in Scandinavia sir. Abul A'la Maududi was smarter than you.  He had an intellect you can not even  dream of achieving and he knew what "True Democracy" meant and he never wished for that. Maududi wished for "Islamic Democracy". 

Come on Imran bhai, tell your followers what you want. "Islamic democracy" or Scandinavian democracy? Also, please tell them that there are no Anti-Blasphemy Laws in Scandinavia (remember those cartoons? yes.). Or, tell them what your version of democracy is, since Jamaat Islami is your coalition partner in KPK, and see how many face-painted youngsters are willing to follow you into a Maududi-designed decmocracy,