The April 22, tragic Pahalgam attack, claimed by the Kashmiri Resistance Front (TRF), a separatist group that emerged post-revocation of Article 370 and 35-A, became the root cause of a military confrontation between India and Pakistan. Even though the attack should be condemned, the Indian and Western media quickly fueled a crisis with baseless claims and bias. Even before any formal investigation, the media outlets started to frame the story that this attack was state-sponsored and India had conducted an operation against terrorists in Pakistan. News headlines of India’s Today, WION, BBC : “India Strikes Sites in Pakistan following Terrorist Attack, Pahalgam Terror Attack Revenges, India Launches Strikes Against Pakistan in wake of the Tourist massacre, Operation Sindoor: India Strikes Terror Camps in Pakistan, Avenge Pahalgam Terror Attack, Precision Strikes at Terror Base in Pakistan” show the biasness in framing and narrative propagation. These spotlights highlight a clear and distinct pattern of unwarranted attribution to Pakistan without fair and independent investigative journalism. The framing “Pakistan-backed, India vows retaliation, and terror campus” is closely aligned with the Indian state narrative. The frequent use of emotionally loaded jargon like massacre, terror, and avenge served to morally legitimize India’s military adventurism. Pakistan’s denial of involvement and calls for a joint investigation received minimal coverage in the Western media.
This is a Cable News Network (CNN) effect in action, which legitimizing state actions under public pressure. The Western media’s alignment with the Indian narrative shaped the early international response. India’s offensive military strikes, named as Operational Sindoor, were largely framed as “counter terrorism” rather than aggression. The Western world initially echoed India’s stances, calling for restraint while not condemning the strikes. This early narrative isolates Pakistan’s stance, portraying it as the aggressor even before the situation was fully understood.
As under Article 51 of the UN charter, Pakistan has reserved the right to act in self-defence. On May 10, Islamabad launched Operation Bunyan al-Marsoos. It was a notable shift that occurred in international media coverage. Headlines like “How real is the risk of nuclear war between Indian and Pakistan?, How can India and Pakistan find a way to de-escalate ?, Trump urges India-Pakistan attacks to stop, Pakistan Attacked medical Centres, Schools Premises in J & K.
The focus abruptly pivoted to Pakistan’s escalation with far more detailed coverage and warning of full-scale war. The same media houses that offer muted coverage of Indian strikes now highlight Pakistan’s retaliation as a global security challenge. When India strikes, it is framed as a justified reaction; when Pakistan uses the right of act of defence, it is framed as an escalation.
The international media’s tendency to frame the Indo-Pakistan crisis within broader, great power rivalries further reflects its strategic bias. A prime example is CNN’s headline “China has spent billion developing military tech. Conflict between India and Pakistan could be its first major test”, while analyzing analytically, this framing subtly diverts attention from the real catalyst of the crisis.
Rather than questioning the legality of India’s offensive military and diplomatic actions, CNN and Indian media tactfully shifted focus to the China-Pakistan strategic partnership. This shift in news framing is not accidental. This systemic framing tries to portray the narrative that such regional conflicts serve China’s strategic interests.
The propagation of such a prejudiced narrative served four key objectives. First, it negates the legality and consequences of India’s irresponsible behaviour by framing the crisis as a test of China’s military technologies. Second, it downplayed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s role as the aggressor by embedding its military action in a regional and global power contest. Third, it cast aspersions on Pakistan’s actions by portraying it as a proxy of China rather than a sovereign state that defending and upholding its national sovereignty and integrity. Fourth, Indian media tried to divert the focus of the international community from the issues of the illegal unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), which remain a major concern for Pakistan.
Moreover, CNN’s storytelling also reflects the Western anxieties about the growing China-Pakistan friendship. The narrative built during the crisis aligns with the geostrategic objectives of the West, which seeks to preserve a balance of power in the region rather than restrain. In the contemporary digitilized world, media outlets play a significant role in shaping public opinions and influencing the policy-making process.When media platforms selectively elevate the coverage of one side of the event and systematically neglect the other side of the story, they create a distorted view of the conflict. When media outlets become an echo chamber for a particular political narrative, their objectivity is compromised. The post-Pahalgam crisis is a real-time example of how Western media has become the echo chamber of the Indian narrative, and how their objectivity is being compromised.
Mr Malik Muhammad Kashif is Research Assistant at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
