Had the law and order enforcing agencies taken timely legal action against a federal minister who slapped a TV anchor in a private dinner a couple of months back the same minister would not have slapped another TV anchor on January 6 th 2020.
What a pity that the use of fisticuff is gaining currency among our law makers who are supposed to make laws.Why don’t they move the courts instead under the law of torts against those gentlemen of the fourth estate who they accuse of telecasting material which in their opinion is aimed at their character assassination is not understandable? Why are they shy of filing libel suits in the courts against the erring journalists? It is in the evidence that they do issue notices to them under the law of defamation but in nine out of ten cases they stop short there and refuse to take the legal proceedings to their logical conclusion fearing that since what has been written or broadcast against them was all not untrue many other hidden shortcomings of their character might well be exposed in their cross examination in the court of law..A case in point was an allegedly scandalous story published in Daily Mail London a couple of months back against Shahbaz Sharif who threatened to sue that newspaper but even after a lapse of many months he hasn’t moved any court in London against that newspaper.
Granted that some periodicals do indulge in yellow journalism but the civilised and legal way of teaching them a lesson was to invoke law of torts against them in the civil courts .Once the courts started making the erring newspapers pay heavy compensation amount in the damages suits practice of yellow journalism can be discouraged to a great extent.
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