Journalist apologizes for releasing false news regarding Panama Papers case

A reporter from the famed English daily The News has apologized for writing a story that falsely claimed that the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) investigating the money laundering case against the Sharif family had found Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif not guilty of any wrongdoing. Instead, the blame of the case was laid entirely on his two sons, Hassan and Hussain Nawaz.

The article titled ‘Panama JIT doesn’t find PM guilty, but his sons’, was published on July 10, a day before the actual investigation report was made public. The report claimed that the JIT did not hold the premier responsible at any place.

The author of the article, Ahmed Noorani, quoted his sources as being ‘close to the JIT’ and he claimed that the JIT had found out that the premier’s son were the ones who failed to provide evidence concerning the transfer of funds to London.

“Clearly the most critical and newsworthy part of my story that ‘Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is not held responsible for any wrongdoing’ proved completely wrong,” reporter Ahmad Noorani wrote in his apology, which was published on the front page of The News’ July 12 edition.

“As a professional journalist, I do understand that the story has hurt my readers as well as my own credibility.”

After the story was published, the Supreme Court took strict action on it and ordered the filing of a contempt of court notice against the printer, publisher and the reporter of The News for the false story.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=55131

Posted by fatimaarshad on Jul 12 2017. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.