The western news media blitz of disinformation and misreporting has angered the Pakistani authorities, as the Pakistani information minister put it: "They were spitting venom against Pakistan."
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) has banned all major western television channels from making live broadcasts from Abbottabad - the scene of Osama bin Laden's assassination by the US Special Forces - and ordered some reporters and their TV crews to leave town.
The international foreign news media specifically targeted are as follows: Fox News, NBC News, CNN, CNS, IBN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Voice of America and Sky News. These channels cannot broadcast anywhere in Pakistan without obtaining a licence. In addition, government officials ordered several British, Australian and American journalists to leave Abbottabad because their visas did not permit them to stay.
Functioning as the mouthpieces of their governments, the western mainstream news media not only have lost their credibility but also smeared their own reputation in "unreliable and irresponsible" news reporting.
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