A procurement controversy by the Punjab government for what it says will be a new provincial airline should have been a routine test of accountability, with journalists asking what was bought, under which authority, at what cost, and for what public purpose. After all, to borrow from Ana Kasparian, “The point of journalism is to hold people in positions of power accountable.”
Instead, it became something uglier and far more revealing. A slice of Pakistan’s YouTube-first political ecosystem treated the episode not as a governance question but as a licence for insinuation, misogyny and sexually charged degradation aimed at the Chief Minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz.
In fast-moving threads, commentator Wajahat Saeed Khan’s early posts-often laced with innuendo and personal attack-were not isolated but quickly gained traction when others such as Moeed Pirzada and Sabir Shakir shared and reiterated the same tone, including doctored or decontextualised images; this pattern of turning a governance question into personal and gendered mockery aligns with a broader history of sexist political discourse in Pakistan, where women leaders routinely face degradation rather than substantive critique.
Civic engagement demands tough questions about priorities, procurement and governance. Indeed, journalist Athar Kazmi observed on X that “criticising public spending is democratic engagement”. Yet, he cautioned, once the argument “descends into misogynistic, sexually charged insults”, it “stops being about governance and reveals a deeper social sickness.”
Similarly, legal scholar Reema Omer noted that the moment the target is a woman, ordinary scrutiny turns into sexual innuendo and vitriol. “Criticism is never enough,” she wrote. Campaigns against a female politician quickly “dominate with sexual innuendo and misogynistic filth,” aimed at a witch-hunt rather than the books.
This pattern is painfully familiar. Media analysts note that men and women are treated very differently. As Zainab Hussain of Soch Fact Check put it, “Look at Maryam Nawaz versus Nawaz Sharif. If they want to insult Nawaz Sharif, they’ll say something derogatory about his daughter.”
Earlier female leaders and activists have endured the same script. As Hussain also explains, Pakistani media still often tries to fit women into a post-Benazir “blueprint,” deeming anything outside it unacceptable. Here, the cycle repeats.
Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhar took to X to lambast these online “gutter YouTubers” who, in criticising the plane, have only exposed their own level and upbringing. They are, she said, “like a festering wound” on society, yet no self-appointed media star has even acknowledged it. Such outrage-entertainment thrives on abusing a female target under the pretence of “news.”
Meanwhile, critics from across the spectrum have described the same phenomenon in their own language: “gutter journalism,” “content sewage,” “character assassination.” The vocabulary is coarse because the behaviour is coarser.
Crucially, this is not mere happenstance but a business model. Pakistan’s social-media “influencers” and digital anchors often monetise outrage. Videos and posts that humiliate or sexualize a public figure go viral, pulling in clicks, followers and advertising revenue. Algorithms reward the loudest, crudest content. Each new slur begets more subscribers and more money. Considering how the long editorial filter of a newsroom has been replaced by a revenue dashboard and engagement metrics, what we see is a virulent, self-perpetuating cycle.
This is what yellow journalism looks like in 2026 Pakistan. It is not merely exaggeration or sloppy reporting. It is a content method: take a public issue, find a female face, sexualise the frame, and flood the feed with coded “jokes,” suggestive language and humiliation bait. Wajahat Saeed Khan, Moeed Pirzada and others now operate inside an incentive structure that rewards volume over verification and outrage over evidence. And this is why Pakistan’s online political “commentary” often resembles a tabloid factory more than a newsroom. It is not that these channels never raise legitimate questions. It is that legitimacy is used as a thin wrapper for a separate objective: audience capture through humiliation. And when the target is a woman, humiliation is routinely sexualised because it travels faster.
The public-interest position is simple and non-negotiable. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz can be criticised on every policy choice her government makes. However, she cannot be stripped of dignity because she is a woman. Her honour is not less sacred because she holds office, and it is not less protected because her opponents dislike her politics.
Even as this is happening on the domestic scene, international advocates like Reporters Without Borders (RSF) are urgently highlighting a different issue. In early 2026, RSF reported that an anti-terrorism court in Islamabad sentenced four exiled Pakistani media figures – including YouTubers Wajahat Saeed Khan and Moeed Pirzada – to life imprisonment on charges of “inciting violence” during the May 2023 protests. RSF denounces the verdict as absurd and calls it a dangerous abuse of power. Anyone would share their concerns that anti-terror laws should not be used to jail any genuine journalist.
Nevertheless, it would also do us well to note the context that gave rise to these convictions. The cases stem from national unrest in May 2023, when supporters of the ousted prime minister attacked army and government sites after his arrest. Pakistani courts noted these online commentators had “incited violence, stirred up unrest, [and] promoted hostility” against state institutions via social media. In January 2026, the same verdict (upheld in absentia) named seven people – including known anchors Haider Raza Mehdi and YouTuber Adil Raja – and sentenced them to life for “digital terrorism” related to those events. The question is not about refusing free speech: one can and should still defend fair trial rights and due process for all individuals.
But calling all of their content “journalism” without scrutiny is dangerous. Many of the convicted individuals had clear partisan leanings and posted conspiratorial, inflammatory commentary. They did not run impartial news desks. Critics argue they were effectively activists stoking anger. Ergo, distinguishing their real-world actions from ideals of press freedom requires nuance. Defending the freedom to speak does not mean we must whitewash what those people said or did online. RSF’s statement used the charged example of equating reporting with terrorism. However, we must refuse the opposite error of equating anything they did with noble journalism. Sensationalism, hate speech, and gendered smears should not be granted a free pass under a “press freedom” banner.
Pakistanis can (and should) demand transparency about every rupee spent on government projects, and insist that public debate be conducted without dehumanising language. The two demands are fully compatible. We must separate the wheat from the chaff without tolerating the sleaze that has hijacked the conversation. As media experts advise, each of us should ask: Is this criticism based on facts and policy, or is it rooted in gender bias?. If it is the latter, it deserves no attention and no clicks.