Daily Times Editorial 31 July 2019

Welcome, new UK premier

At last, Boris Johnson has achieved his life’s biggest goal of becoming Britain’s new prime minister, but it’s still not been at an ideal moment. He faces his self-created drama of Brexit, which has torn apart the Conservative Party as well the British society. Another crisis that may go from bad to worse is the seizure of Britain’s oil tanker by Iran, if his impulsive nature strikes. His choice of the cabinet has also beaten the observations of political pundits. In his maiden speech at Downing Street on Wednesday, he roared in his signature about Britain’s long-awaited divorce from the European Union before October 31, the much-trumpeted deadline. Mr Johnson is ready to pursue a hard Brexit by defeating “doubters, doomsters and gloomsters.” He did not mention who, in his book, are doubters, doomsters and gloomsters. Leaving something unsaid is his characteristic style.

Since the day he took oath as prime minister of one of the most powerful countries of Europe and the world, the whole world is observing Mr Johnson’s every move. His first action – the selection of the new cabinet – is shocking as well as surprising and amazing. The most surprising, and happy surprise for Pakistanis are the induction of Sajid Javid as chancellor of the exchequer. Mr Javid is the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver. Earlier, he served as the home secretary, also an important post. In the 2016 referendum, he was in the anti-leave camp. He has a great responsibility to steer the UK economy through the throes of Brexit. Several monetary institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, have predicted the collapse of Britain’s economy in the wake of Brexit. Mr Javid, who calls himself a eurosceptic, will have to extraordinary dexterity. Another minister is Dominic Raab, who once favoured proroguing parliament so that a no-deal exit goes smoothly.

Also, Mr Johnson presides over a polarised parliament now. Time and again, the party members have voted against the former minister on the exit issue. Some hardliners have repeated the threat to vote out Mr Johnson if the exit deadline is not honoured for a third time.

Mr Johnson faces tough times ahead. So far, he has been flying high taking the road of populist rhetoric. Now, he must calculate the risks of walking out of the European club. The UK is also in the centre of a Gulf storm, after it seized an Iranian tanker carrying an oil shipment to, allegedly, Syria. In a tit for tat, Iran also seized Britain’s oil tanker in the troubled Strait of Hormuz. This poses a test for Mr Johnson’s diplomatic skills.

The right to information

The availability of data is of prime importance for journalists, who work as the watchdog for government affairs. In Punjab, right to information act has been in place since 2013 and the government has been banking on journalists to raise awareness among the masses about the information laws and also seek information to expose corruption. The Punjab Information Commission also expects that journalists move departments seeking information regarding government affairs and report them and in case of non-delivery of information, move the PIC. The watchdog, however, has been disappointed with journalists invoking RTI laws. The PIC found only three journalists – Khalid Khattak (The News), Asif Mahmood (Jang) and Ashraf Javed (The Nation) — have been using the forum of the PIC to get their information rights. Khalid has been doing reporting for the past 15 years, Asif Mahmood 20 years and Ashraf Javed 18 years. Khalid Khattak also runs a website where he posts data stories. According to his one of story:

Over 97 percent of journalists in Pakistan who took a data journalism survey believe that official data is not easily available in Pakistan. But at the same time, most of them, 75.6 percent, said they never used the Right to Information (RTI) laws to get official data! The survey developed by Data Stories and Journalism Pakistan was available online from June 22, 2016 to August 31, 2016 and a total of 78 journalists took the survey from across Pakistan.

Of all these respondents, 47 (60.3 percent) said official data availability was difficult while 29 (37.2 percent) termed it very difficult. But 59 (75.6 percent) respondents said they never used the RTI laws to get official data. Shouldn’t journalists exercise this right a little more?

As many as 24 (30.8 percent) of the respondents said they didn’t use Microsoft Excel for basic data analysis while 16 (20.5 percent) recorded an affirmative response saying they wanted to explore more. Similarly, only 15 (19.2 percent) of the journalists said they knew how to extract data from a website while only eight (10.3 percent) of the journalists said they used free data visualisation tools.

The survey paints a bleak picture about the usage of the RTI laws by the journalists. In this situation, it the responsibility of the editors and media houses to push their reporters to leverage RTI laws for verified and accurate information.