PEMRA notices to five channels for airing fake news

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 29 June 2020

PEMRA has taken action against five private television channels for airing false reports regarding Kuwaiti Airlines grounding Pakistani pilots. The regulatory body has given these channels two weeks to explain their actions.

Summary

ISLAMABAD—Electronic media regulator, PEMRA has issued notices to five private TV channels for reporting that Kuwait Airways has grounded Pakistani pilots and engineers after the government reported pilots with dubious licenses in Pakistan.

Presenting the report on a PIA plane crash in Karachi in May 2020, Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan told the National Assembly that there were about 262 pilots with fake and dubious licenses in PIA and other commercial airlines in Pakistan.

PEMRA issued notices to ARY, 24 News, Public TV, and GTV for reporting that seven Pakistani pilots and around 50 engineers working in Kuwait Airlines had been grounded.

On Sunday, Kuwait Airways, in a tweet, also termed the news as false. It said it did not have any Pakistani employed as a pilot.

Daily The News also reported this news. However, there were only three lines about the alleged grounding of Pakistani pilots and engineers, and the rest of the story was about the statement by PALPA.

Although the paper based its story “as per media reports,” it did not name any newspaper or TV channel.

The five TV channels have been given two weeks to respond to the notice.