^[1]A few days back Dawn ^[2] had reported from a press release issued by the Karachi City District Government that our 36-year old mayor was ranked as the 2nd Best Mayor in the world along with Berlin’s Klaus Wowereit, and Chongqing’s Wang Hongju.

But what has suddenly turned into an embarrassing situation for the CDGK, is when Joshua Keating an editor of Foriegn Policy Magazine revealed in a blog post ^[3] that we never ranked him in any way. This entire mess could have been avoided with some very basic fact-checking and now in response the Karachi City Government has also scrambled to edit its own website to quietly amend its text ^[4] to reflect the changed position

Joshua Keating writes on Foreign Policy Blog ^[3]: At issue is a sidebar ^[5]from FP’s recent Global Cities Index that names Kamal, Berlin’s Klaus Wowereit, and Chongqing’s Wang Hongju as “mayors of the moment” who have found innovative ways to globalize their cities. The mayors are not ranked, nor are we implying that they are objectively “better” than any other mayors, but that didn’t stop the Karachi city government from issuing a press release on its Web site (they’ve changed the text since being contacted by FP) congratulating Kamal for being the No. 2 mayor in the world. For the record, the three names are not listed in any particular order. Pakistan’s biggest English-language newspaper, Dawn, then printed a glorified transcription of the mayor’s press release by the government-controlled Associated Press of Pakistan as a front-page story without ever checking with us to see if it was accurate.

According to one reporter, who unlike Dawn contacted us for comment, “Karachi is riddled with banners by the local government, congratulating Mr. Kamal for being declared as second best mayor of the world by the Foreign Policy.”

We hate to rain on Kamal’s parade, and certainly intend him and his city no disrespect, but we simply never ranked him in any way. This entire mess could have been avoided with some very basic fact-checking.