• Azam Nazeer Tarar says news given in haste can benefit or harm someone, urges journalists to prioritise fact-checking
• Mentions rumours about Imran’s health as prime example of ‘confusion caused by speculation’

ISLAMABAD: Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar on Wednesday highlighted that journalism was a responsibility and that delivering verified news was the real job, making fact-checking paramount.

To substantiate his point, the law minister cited the recent hullabaloo surrounding the medical condition of incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan as a prime example of the confusion caused by speculation and rumours about his eye condition.

“Though a lot of speculation started making the rounds due to the claim that 85 per cent of Imran Khan’s eyesight had been lost, it was never stated that his vision had improved considerably due to the treatment administered to the patient,” the minister regretted while speaking at the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected cabinet of the Press Association of the Supreme Court here at the SC building.

Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Haroonur Rashid and senior member of the Pakistan Bar Council Ahsan Bhoon were also present on the occasion, during which the minister administered the oath to President Imran Waseem and his cabinet to assume their respective offices for a period of one year.

The minister regretted that it was never highlighted that due to treatment by eye experts at Al-Shifa Hospital after the constitution of a medical board by the SC, the PTI founder’s vision had improved by 70pc.

Fears eventually subsided after the report by expert doctors was revealed.

However, the unnecessary public upheaval caused by wrong information regarding the eye ailment even led a provincial government to allow road blockades and protests in the province when it should have shown its constitutional responsibility, the minister lamented.

It was only because of the directions issued by the Peshawar High Court that the road blockades were removed and normalcy retur­ned in the province, he said.

The minister urged journalists to verify information prior to publication.

“News given in haste can benefit or harm someone,” he said, adding that although the Constitution ensured freedom of expression, it also imposed reasonable restrictions.

The law minister also cited his own example, where his assets declaration mentioned in his nomination papers for the Senate seat was wrongly represented, for which he had been issuing clarifications for the last five years, but in vain.

He added that even agencies had warned him that the wrong information about his asset declaration might endanger his security.

The minister conceded that journalism was taking place in difficult circumstances, as reporters were undertaking an uphill task to extract news from the courts and convey it to the public.

“Not only is it public education, sometimes lawyers also benefit from journalists’ news, since the decisions rendered by the courts take months to be printed in the law digests,” he said.

He further accepted that cases against journalists were a matter of pain and assured that he would speak to the Islamabad prosecu-tor general to resolve an issue relating to a drug allegation against a journalist.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2026