Journalism has a long and glorious tradition of keeping its promise to its

audience even in the face of enormous pressure brought to bear upon it from
the corridors of power. Time has proved this to be the correct stance. Some of
the most contentious yet historically significant stories have been told by
news organisations while resisting the states narrow, self-serving and evershifting definition of national interest.

One could include in this list, among others, the Pentagon Papers detailing US
government duplicity in its conduct of the Vietnam War; the Abu Ghraib
pictures that exposed torture of prisoners at the hands of US soldiers in Iraq;
the WikiLeaks release in 2010 of US State Department diplomatic
communications; and Edward Snowdens disclosure of the National Security
Agencys global surveillance system.

Even more so in Pakistan, where decades of a militarised security

environment have undermined the importance of holding the state to account
something that certain sections of the media have become complicit in
despite their long, hard-won struggle for freedom such a furore as
generated by the Dawn report was not unexpected.