Media urged to ensure implementation of ethics | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Media urged to ensure implementation of ethics

FAISALABAD: Speakers at a seminar have urged media to ensure implementation of the media ethics and give solutions to the social issues of common man instead of focusing on crime and politics at large.

The seminar on media ethics was arranged by the Public Relations and Publications Department, the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, the Higher Education Commission and the Press Council of Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, Press Council of Pakistan Chairman justice (Retd) Shafqat Abbasi said that the self-regulation within the media organisations must be developed to keep a check on media ethics and make it ensure to convey real issues of the public by ending sensationalism. He said that press councils were functioning in 90 countries across the world. They were determined to make the Press Council of Pakistan more effective to implement the media ethics and framing a course of action in this regard, he added.

UAF Vice-Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan stressed the need to avoid the sensationalism. He said that the university was launching an FM radio to guide the farmers about the latest agricultural practices of the country.

HEC Director Publications Ayesha Ikram said that no one could deny the importance of media as it was the power to change the minds. Mugheesuddin Sheikh said that it was must to follow the objectivity but absolute objectivity was a mere a dream as the frame of minds affect the selection and news treatment.

Senior journalist Shamsul Islam Naz said that according to a survey, the majority of people believed that the media had failed to present the real picture and truth. Prof Jalal Arif said that it was still a debatable issue that to what extent the media had liberty to act upon the code of ethics. Dr AR Khalid said that it was vital to ensure the national security at every stage in the production process of news.

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