When Journalism Slips into Activism
Yalda Hakim is not an inexperienced reporter. That made the imbalance more glaring.
Pressing a sitting government spokesperson on whether she would be “allowed” to interview a jailed political figure—knowing full well that prison laws restrict such access in nearly every country—was not a serious question. It was theatre.
Dragging up old tweets as a substitute for addressing present-day legal realities was not accountability. It was a shallow “gotcha” that landed flat because it avoided the core issue: the law as it exists now, not opinions expressed years ago.
When journalists begin defending a narrative instead of testing it, credibility suffers.
The Refugee Paradox and Selective Moralism
There is also an uncomfortable contradiction that went unaddressed.
Those claiming refuge from terrorism elsewhere while simultaneously endorsing political figures accused—rightly or wrongly—of accommodating militant groups invite scrutiny. Asking that question is not harassment. It is consistency.
You cannot build moral authority on selective empathy.
Hard States, Soft Signals
Ali K. Chishti put it bluntly: hard states don’t explain internal politics on foreign TV; they exert policies.
History agrees.
The United States does not debate its prison population on Al Jazeera. France does not justify counter-terror laws on Sky News. India does not invite foreign anchors to adjudicate its courts.
When a state begins doing so, it signals uncertainty about its own legitimacy.
Pakistan should not fall into that trap.
