Speakers slam media gagging laws
ISLAMABAD – The participants of the dialogue on ‘Media Regulatory Laws’ condemned media gagging laws enacted from time to time and urged a durable solution to the conflicts between government and media in the country.
The dialogue was arranged by ‘Intermedia’ here on Saturday. The participants spoke at length over Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Act 2007 and hailed the present government’s move to abolish the black laws against the media. However, they observed, government was exterminating only those sections of the Act added after the imposition of emergency on November 3, last year.
The debaters particularly targeted provision of the Act, which bounded private TV channels to devote 10 percent of their airtime to government messages. Other provisions like powers of the President of making all the appointments in PEMRA, inapplicability of PEMRA laws to state-run media, PEMRA powers to investigate against licensees for failing to meet licence conditions and the authoritative role of District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) to allow or refuse registration to newspapers.
Member of South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) Agha Nasir said the basic problem lied in the fact the Act did not provide definitions of important terms and concepts used in it. He said the concepts like national interest, decency, obscenity and vulgarity are defined by both the media organisations and government according to their own mind set and interests. He urged for a consensus over definition of the said words so that various complications and conflicts between media and governments could be avoided.
“PEMRA should have nothing to do with the media contents, rather it should be monitored by the media itself”, said Shazia Zahid from Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi. She said media organisations should be answerable to the society only, not anyone else. She said media was a job of great responsibility, and government and media organisations should ensure a regular mechanism for entry into the field and on-job training to the working journalists.
Afzal Butt, President of Rawalpindi Islamabad Union of Journalists (RIUJ), urged for providing better working environment to journalists and improved salary packages.
While formally opening the forum for discussion, he raised the question as to how media organisations could blame government when they their self were not ensuring welfare of their workers. He said journalists in majority of print and electronic media organisations were working in very pitiable conditions. He urged the presence of influential bodies, which should effectively negotiate with the owners for the rights of working journalists.
The Secretary General of Pakistan Federal Union of journalists (PFUJ) said besides the governments, there were non-state elements, like political organisations, pressure groups and warlords, who were offering immense hurdles to the flow of information. He said they offered life threats to journalists working in conflicts-ridden areas.
He said there was no need of Ministry of Information as there existed spokespersons of the entire top government figures and functionaries. He said the same was used as a propaganda tool in third world countries; controlling advertisements and funding writers to write columns and articles in favor of the respective governments.
He said Ministry of Information was the only organisation in the country other than ISI that had secret funds, which, he said, was even exempted from the annual audit.
He said the same was responsible for every kind of mess in the media. He also wailed over the weaker editorial control and increasing commercialism in media and said it was news for which the papers were purchased, not the ads.
Matiullah Jan said the media itself, not the PEMRA, should define terms like national interests, decency, obscenity etc. He said media be let to work under moral and social pressure, not the legal one. He also demanded the formation of a representative, self-regulatory and centralised body to control and regulate various functions of media.
Source: The Nation
Date:4/20/2008
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