akistan is known for swinging between the pranks of popular politics and the potency of the praetorian prowess. The debate as to who really enjoyed people’s preference and who benefitted from the predilection of the powerful quarters is as old as the country itself.

In theory, the head of the state is supposed to appoint a caretaker prime minister in consultation with the outgoing premier and the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. Many sherwani-wearing wanderers of Islamabad’s marbled corridors of power have claimed that the nomination of the ‘pretender’ was a surprise to all three.

Posting on X, formerly Twitter, Anwaar-ul Haq Kakar, the caretaker prime minister, wrote, “I am thankful to the Almighty for being given an opportunity to serve the people of Pakistan.”

He went on to say, “My gratitude also extends to all the stakeholders for reposing their trust in me to lead the country.”

Some people have been joking since then about former prime minister Shahbaz Sharif and the opposition leader, Raja Riaz actually being aware of Kakar’s selection. So, it won’t be entirely erroneous to suggest that some of those who boast to know about all that happens in Islamabad weren’t aware that Kakar was going to become the prime minister.

Nikkei-Asia quoted at least one of the country’s senior most politicians on that count – Pakistan Peoples Party’s Syed Khursheed Shah.

Similar opinions were shared with me by some of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s frontline politicians and former ministers. “Frankly, call me ignorant, but I’m struggling to recognise some of the cabinet members,” a former federal minister asking not to be named told me. “Even Google could come up with only a few lines on some of them,” he quipped.

Seeds for suspicion were sown because Kakar’s name was not mentioned once by dozens of TV anchors who regularly profess to rule the roost of the capital’s gossip factory.

Serious analysts, however, had a different take on not only the prime ministerial appointment but about the selection of his entire cabinet. Criticism of the selection of the interim setup would no doubt continue. But the inclusion of some of the ministers pointed not only to a very serious situation facing the country but may also answer in a roundabout way why some of the members of the cabinet are indeed in the cabinet.

Loss of trust in public interest journalism is not limited to Pakistan. It comes across as a global phenomenon. Writing for The New York Times over six months ago, Bret Stephens shared the numbers of Americans who do not believe what news media tells them. 

It is not the economy. It is the deteriorating law and order in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The former has a long history of insurgency that saw thousands perish over the last 50 years. The latter has been a hotbed of international terror outfits for decades. The northernmost districts of KP are on the boil once again.

To say that the situation is worrisome would be an understatement. But haven’t we been told for years that ‘Pakistan is passing through a delicate phase.’ So, nothing new there and the hope should be that it would pull itself out of the morass once again like it has done many a time in the past.

What’s more troubling is how some channels paint a picture every evening once the sun starts setting. For years now, a daily cocktail of below-par commentary by fossilised opinion makers – mostly B-rated politicians, lawyers and know-all analysts – has turned ordinary Pakistanis into chronic cynics. Half-baked fiction presented as 24-carat facts have muddied the possibility of well-meaning and informed debate on anything. Hardly anything is discussed but politics.

In the absence of a real news production process, poaching is the game. Loss of trust, in such circumstances is the natural outcome.

The public approval earned by some of Pakistan’s leading news anchors for their hardcore journalistic work over the years has either been seriously tarnished or compromised due to propaganda by vested interests or unfair competition.

Loss of trust in public interest journalism is not limited to Pakistan. It comes across as a global phenomenon. Writing for The New York Times over six months ago, Bret Stephens shared the numbers of Americans who do not believe what news media tells them.

“It is hardly a secret within America’s newsrooms that our profession has lost much of the public trust. Gallup, which has polled ‘confidence in institutions’ for decades, found that, as of last summer, just 16 per cent of Americans had either a ‘great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of confidence in newspapers – down from 25 per cent a decade earlier and 35 per cent in 2002. For TV news, the latest results were even worse. Eleven per cent of Americans trust it. Fifty-three per cent don’t.”

Americans should not be considered as the benchmark of probity but since mass media is essentially an American invention, they sometimes say what most of us want to say too.

CNN’s late Bernard Shaw, one of the most known American journalists and lead news broadcasters of modern times, famously said, “To me, more important than how I sound or how I look is how I think, how I write, how I communicate – that’s journalism. The rest is BS.” Less said should suffice.

The writer is the resident editor of The News at Islamabad.