Centre urged to give print media subject to provinces
QUETTA, May 25: A seminar on freedom of the press has called on the federal government to hand over the subject of print media to the provincial governments, retaining the electronic media only.
This was recommended by groups of editors/publishers reporters and correspondents at the one-day seminar, organized by the Islamabad-based German Foundation of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Mass Communication Department of Balochistan University.
The groups further recommended that a committee of officials and public representatives should be formed to issue advertisements so that any misuse and abuse of powers were checked effectively and its distribution made just and equitable.
Advertisements of the government should be linked with the quality of newspapers and the circulation should not be the lone basis for receiving government advertisements, they further recommended, adding that the genuine press be patronized and promoted so that all the working people, including journalists, should earn respectable livelihood.
They recommended that all those persons having no journalistic experience should be barred under the law from bringing out a newspaper and thus mushroom growth of dummy newspapers could be checked effectively. The recommendations added that all those persons making investment in the newspaper industry and providing finances should not be allowed the pride and status of editor, managing editor, etc. They should be confined to remain on their position to the management side only.
The print media should be made a provincial subject and the federal government should exercise control over electronic media only.
Another recommendation of the group was that the taxes on newsprint should be reduced, duty slashed on newspaper inputs so as to provide the readers the newspapers of their choice on cheaper rates. Another group of the seminar comprising reporters, correspondents and bureau chiefs of different local and national dailies recommended that a law should be formulated for access to the government documents, apart from those which are important for the national security and defence of the country.
Likewise, other media institutions, such as radio and television, master degree holders in journalism and mass communication disciplines should be inducted in the print media as sub-editors and reporters’
The implementation of wage award should be ensured in all the newspapers, recommendations added, saying a legislation be made for providing complete security to the working journalists and staff of the newspapers while discharging their professional duties.
A press council should be formed on the pattern of India and the United Kingdom.
The by-laws of the law for contempt of court should be elaborated and amendments be made, bringing it at par with the democratic needs, the group-two recommended and added that a law should be formed for strict punishment of all those creating hurdles in the way of journalists’ professional duties.
The group-three, which included news editors and sub-editors of the different newspapers, recommended that a specific space should be reserved for advertisements on front and back pages of the newspapers and their should not be any advertisement on these pages exceeding 33 per cent, and the remaining space should be for news to meet the requirements of readers who want to have more news and more information on these pages.
In his concluding remarks, Prof. Zakaria Sajid, director, Press Institute of Pakistan and ex-chairman of the Department of Mass Communication, Karachi University, who presided over the second plenary and concluding session, said there were major changes in the field of journalism worldwide which would definitely have positive impacts on the dictatorial societies, and journalism would have freedom of expression with sound justification.
Besides academician and media experts from Karachi, the seminar was attended by the editors, publishers, reporters, news editors, sub-editors, correspondents, bureau chiefs of different local and national newspapers and students of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Balochistan.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/26/1999
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