We are on the verge of another Code of Conduct, this time for private media broadcasters and cable operators in Pakistan. The federal ministry of information is the issuing authority of a code that was formulated by a committee set up by the prime minister under the direction of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Judged against ideal conditions, this might seem like a distortion of huge proportions. But in this country, we operate in terms of exceptional circumstances: a country where the Supreme Court is directing the provinces to fulfill their constitutional obligation of holding local government elections and where the parliament passes an amendment allowing for military courts, and gets an endorsement of the apex court for doing so.
Here, exceptional circumstances create exceptional needs. This is how we tend to do things in this country and this is how this Code of Conduct was born -- by excluding some major stakeholders, the regulator, the media professionals as well as media consumers, from the process of its development.
The Code, or state regulation as some might suggest, that mostly covers the electronic media does a few good things, as specified by Adnan Rehmat, in his article. These are the much-needed directions on hate speech, distinction between fact and opinion, slander and libel. It enlarges the scope of the hitherto sacred ‘national interest’ and includes in the list of holy cows the parliament and democratic setup and the ‘founding fathers’ apart from judiciary and armed forces.
There are serious problems in its implementation, especially with no complaint registration and redressal system. One hopes this is a good starting point as Hamid Mir says "it is better than nothing". One hopes, as Aftab Alam says, that we move to a voluntary code and self-regulation from this point.