After being hammered in media, I’ve stopped reading papers, watching chat shows: Imran

Davos, January 23

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said he had stopped reading morning newspapers and watching evening chat shows on TV due to extreme negativity targeted at him in the media.

He said it was a painful process which Pakistan had to go through to reap the benefits of deep institutional and governance reforms being implemented by his government and asked everyone to “be patient” for results.

“It’s like you want to go to heaven, but don’t want to die. This might be a bad example, so I’ll say you want a tumour to be removed but don’t want the pain of surgery,” Khan said here at a breakfast session aimed at showcasing his vision for Pakistan and its economic potential before the global business leaders as well as overseas Pakistanis.

Khan, who is here to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2020, said his vision is to make Pakistan a “humane, just and welfare society” as was envisioned by the founding fathers of the country.

“I am used to criticism, being in public life for 40 years, but the last one and a half years I’ve been hammered in media.

“The best I could do was I stopped reading newspapers and don’t watch evening chat shows. Problem is my officials do watch them and then tell me what they are saying,” he said.

“All I want to say is ‘be patient’. It will take a lot of political will and courage to take on all this criticism and succeed eventually,” he said.

“It is going to be difficult. There is some short-term pain and struggle ahead but be assured we have good times ahead for Pakistan,” Khan said.

The Prime Minister said when you are going through reforms, especially governance reforms; it is not possible for results to reflect immediately.

“You can destroy an institution immediately but it takes time to restore it. We have so many bloated institutions and many people there are without work and also without even the right background,” he said. PTI

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