Media urged to portray women positively
ISLAMABAD- Pakistan Television has adopted double standards as far as its advertisement policy is concerned and it is paying no attentions to its code of ethics regarding positive portrayal of women.
This was the consensus reached among the participants of a one-day workshop on “Portrayal of Women in the Media”, organized by the Aurat Publication and Information Service Foundation.
The participants were of the view that public sector TV channels needed to play a more important role in positive portrayal of women on the electronic media. Whereas, they said, at present, it looked as if the PTV was in competition with private sector channels in presenting women as a commercial commodity.
Tasneem Ahmer, a resource person at the workshop, said, of late, PTV had been busy presenting women as a marketable item in its commercials.
“To my knowledge, PTV has a definite code of ethics, which is being violated by its management just to earn more profits,” she said.
She urged the journalists, who had been invited from Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad to attend the workshop, to portray womenfolk as an honourable section of the society.
It has been common practice in print media that stories involving women were presented as a source of excitement rather than information.
Ms Ahmer said journalists from the print media should devise a code of ethics, whereby a certain glossary of words should be declared forbidden, specially in Urdu newspapers. However, she agreed that newspaper owners were responsible for the unscrupulous attitude reflected in their papers as far as negative portrayal of women was concerned.
Unfortunately, at present, enlarged photographs of the rape victims are published with catchy headlines, the resource person said, adding that in this regard, media monitoring was necessary on part of journalists. Moreover, the issue should also be addressed at the level of journalists’ associations.
Sajid Mansoor Qaisrani, a former PTV employee, said, during its early days, the PTV produced some of the best dramas and music videos.
Source: Dawn
Date:2/22/2003
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