Jang Group boycott negative, Zardari told
By Ahmad Noorani
ISLAMABAD: The newly-elected president of South Asia Free Media Association (Safma) Nusrat Javed has asked President Asif Ali Zardari that his party’s decision to boycott the Geo and Jang Group is a wrong and conveys a negative message.
“During the recent meeting of Safma journalists, I have asked President Zardari that he and PPP as a democratic political party shouldn’t have boycotted a media group and that this decision has given a very wrong message to everyone,” Nusrat said while talking to The News.
Nusrat, while referring to the recent Pemra conference, said that most of participants in their speeches have severely criticised the anchor persons from every news channel for their style of asking questions, commenting and crossing some limits. He said that no one specified the anchorpersons from some selected media channel.
Nusrat said the declaration was issued by some 300 participants and while drafting this declaration was kept confined to the subject of the seminar, ‘Media, Democracy and Governance’. He said that issues like controlling of media channels by pressuring the cable operators, kidnapping and torture of Umar Cheema and other sanctions on media were not discussed in the declaration, as the subject of the seminar was different. He said that however during speeches almost all the participants raised different issues including the Umar Cheema incident.
Nusrat explained that in the declaration of Safma conference the words ‘a section of sensational media’ was used in general terms and it was not meant to indicate towards some specific media group. Nusrat said that all knew his professional standing and he will make it sure that Safma shouldn’t become a government’s tool.
Source: The News
Date:11/10/2010
” 
” 
” 
” 
