RECENT days have brought the deaths of two more journalists, with Khushnood Shaikh dying in a car crash in Karachi — though given the threats he had been receiving, and the general atmosphere of intimidation that reporters covering Karachi work under, there are questions about whether his death was an accident — and Malak Mumtaz Khan being shot dead in North Waziristan. These incidents came soon after the loss of three journalists who were killed while covering the double bombing that targeted Hazara Shias in Quetta on Jan 10. In the first two months of the year, then, Pakistan has already lost five members of the print and electronic media. At this rate, we are on track to once again top the year’s list of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.

The Sindh government has promised to investigate Mr Shaikh’s death. But we have heard such promises before. In most cases, of course, journalists’ deaths go unexplained. But even when a particular incident makes waves, there is no satisfactory conclusion and perpetrators go unpunished. The report on Saleem Shahzad’s death might as well not have been written, given that it simply said he could have been the victim of militants or intelligence agencies. All six witnesses to the death of Wali Khan Babar have been killed. At one level, then, there is a complete failure of law-enforcement agencies and the judicial system to protect journalists. But in the competition for advertisement revenues and ratings, media houses are also to blame. Take one simple example: double bombings. The only way to prevent journalists from rushing to the scene of an explosion, and therefore falling victim to follow-on bombings, is if all or most media outlets agree that their employees will maintain a certain distance from the location of the attack. Instead, competition to capture every detail of the scene, particularly among the electronic media, means journalists’ lives are unnecessarily put at risk. Caught between an indifferent and sometimes even hostile state, raging militancy, and irresponsible management, Pakistan’s journalists continue to lose their lives at an appalling rate.