The Economist in its recent edition made the assertion that India’s press is more craven than its Pakistani counterpart. The edit piece didn’t find favour with some Indian journalists who felt the British weekly is best ignored. While being insular is hardly a quality journalists should aspire to, perhaps the discomfort with the piece had a little to do with its broad declaration on a media landscape that is, at best, complicated.

The piece makes its case using the example of NDTV and a few television journalists of the Gaurav Sawant-ilk, who like to flaunt their nationalism complete with faux military batons and camouflage attire on prime-time news. Across the Radcliffe Line, it elaborates on the support Cyrus Almeida received in the face of a Pakistani government-invoked ban. Reflective as these examples may be of the direction journalism seems to be taking in both these nations, they don’t tell us about day-to-day reporting trends, especially on matters pertaining to national security, terrorism and government response.

Take, for example, Quetta. The deadly terror attack in a police academy has naturally received front-page prominence in four of Pakistan’s prominent newspapers today — The Dawn, The Express Tribune, The Nation and The International News.

The Dawn in its front-page noted that while the Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the attack, officials in Quetta stated it was carried out by Lashkar-e-Jahangvi (LeJ), a sectarian Sunni militant organisation. (Back home, The Times of India, led with the headline “3 IS fidayeen kill 60 at Quetta police academy” on its front page.) In a strongly-worded edit piece, Dawn notes: “It is not a figment of a febrile imagination that outside elements continue to not only support some Baloch insurgents, but also seek to destabilise Pakistan in a murky tit-for-tat strategy.”

The piece goes on to add that whoever may have masterminded the attack, the final responsibility rests with the Pakistani government for its ineptitude in containing violence.

In a similar vein, The Express Tribune questioned the security lapse in its lead copy: “The deadly gun and suicide attack raised some stinging questions: how did the terrorists get into the facility where hundreds of cadets were under training? Why is the casualty figure so high while security forces responded well in time?” The paper also pointed at different terror organisations that were claiming to have mastered the attack, chiefly LeJ, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and IS. It quotes analysts to state that perhaps this was evidence of new linkages between terror groups that remain unofficial.

The edit piece also takes a sharp dig at the Pakistani government stating that there “are no ‘good terrorists’ or ‘bad terrorists’ and the Quetta attack is a fundamental policy failure…”.

The Nation, on the other hand, gave prominence space to  “foreign-sponsored” angle. Its second lead copy is headlined, “Terror plan made in Delhi, PM told”. The story presents a claim made by Inter-Service Intelligence Commander Brig Khalid Farid as proof: “…the plan to attack Police Training College Hostel was made in New Delhi, handed to Afghan NDS-RAW network which assigned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi operating on Afghan soil to execute it”.

The op-ed “Another Quetta Attack” again asks for accountability from the Pakistani government.

The International News in its lead copy also hinted at conflicting claims on who executed the attacks. On its front-page it gave prominence to assertions made by Sindh Information Adviser Maula Bakhsh Chandio who alleged that “Indian intelligence agency RAW (Research and Intelligence Wing) was involved in a spate of terrorist incidents in the country.”

While these papers have questioned their government, statements made by official sources and political spokespersons aren’t treated with much scepticism. Much like in the aftermath of the Uri attack and the Surgical Strikes.

More importantly, the news of a Lashkar-e-Taiba poster claiming responsibility of Uri attack was ignored by these Pakistani dailies on their front and inside pages.

Back home, the poster, surfacing in Gujranwala town of Pakistan, made front-page news in The Indian Express and The Times of India. Express quoted from the poster: “They invite local residents to join namaaz prayers for the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s ‘lion-hearted holy warrior Abu Siraqa Muhammad Anas, who sent 177 Hindu soldiers to hell at the Uri Brigade camp in occupied Kashmir, and thus drank from the glass of martyrdom’”. The Hindustan Times also reported on the development, albeit not on the front page.

At a time when its government’s incapacity to deal with terror is the focus, why did Pakistani newspapers skip reporting Lashkar’s announcement? The Quetta attack, at any rate, was a bigger story to follow, but a near-omission on even the web editions points to another reality: On a day when your country has suffered one of the biggest attacks in recent times on a security force campus, you don’t want to be seen as a media outlet that presents news that may work in favour of the other (enemy?) country. This is again true for media in both nations.

Instead of a comparison of their cravenness perhaps better questions can be asked of the Pakistani and Indian media: Will the former investigate the Lashkar poster that suggests Uri was planned in Pakistan? Will the latter scrutinise the real impact of the surgical strikes and its foreign policies in Balochistan?