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Thursday March 28, 2024

Media urged to give public views a positive direction

KarachiNo entity can ever remain oblivious to what is being said by the media as they exercise full authority over the affairs of society and must be taken seriously.These observations were made by city commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui while addressing a seminar on ‘Media Responsibility and Independence Index’ (MRII), sponsored by

By Anil Datta
May 08, 2015
Karachi
No entity can ever remain oblivious to what is being said by the media as they exercise full authority over the affairs of society and must be taken seriously.
These observations were made by city commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui while addressing a seminar on ‘Media Responsibility and Independence Index’ (MRII), sponsored by the USAID in collaboration with the public affairs section of the Institute of Business Management (IoBM), at a hotel on Thursday.
The media, he said, exercised real authority and were instrumental in changing or removing functionaries in case of the latter’s wrongdoings. “They are the voice of the people. Besides, the public sector has to be in the limelight to bring to the notice of society the misdemeanour of officials,” stated Siddiqui.
He said the media was the main source of information and played an important part in formulating views; therefore, they had to keep in mind their power to mould public views in a positive direction.
Siddiqui lauded the College of Business Management (CBM) and said that, through its media studies department, it was making the students more aware. “Times and dynamics have changed with the passage of years and society is confronted with new requirements, new values. As such the move of the IoBM to venture into the realm of media is highly laudable,” Siddiqui said.
Sarmad Ali, marketing director of the Jang Group of Newspapers, said that before the rush of the electronic media there was a “24-hour cycle”, implying, thereby, that there was a gap of 24 hours between the happening of the event and appearance of its news in the press.
As such, journalists had sufficient time to confirm the veracity of the news and check and counter-check on facts and details.
“Then came the electronic media and the 24-hour cycle vanished. There developed a race among the media to be the first ones to report the event and on account of this race, reliability was dented as the media didn’t have ample time to check on facts.
“Thus independence of the media began to get precedence over responsibility,” Sarmad said.
He spoke of the repression faced in the Zia era when journalists were flogged and there were newsprint restrictions. Ads, he added, were used as leverage to make the media fall in line, so those who came after these restrictions were removed didn’t know how to use this independence.
However, Sarmad said, “We shouldn’t start regulating this independence.”
Ali Hassan Naqvi of Dawn said new sources of the media had forced mainstream media to become responsible.
Business Recorder Editor Arshad Zuberi, in his paper titled “Pakistan Media Perspective”, said that no doubt reporters were a great force, but people wrongly tried to bank unduly on them. Reporters, he said, were still subordinate to the media house owners and they could not alter or influence the policies of the groups they were working for. “It must be clear that it is the media owners who matter,” he said.
Journalist Agha Masood said that independence came very rapidly after Musharraf’s exit. He was against unfettered freedom and said that media would have to be regulated.
This was followed by a panel discussion on the state of the freedom and responsibility of the media. The panel was based on six participants. Most of them were of the opinion that the media was really independent but was not displaying the responsibility.
Lubna Jarrar Naqvi said that irresponsibility was reflected in the unverified news, while senior journalist Amir Zia agreed that there was freedom but said it was marred by the blame-game of journalists.
Gibran Peshimam of Geo News, however, was of the opinion that the media was highly responsible, but not independent enough.
Owais Mangalwala said the media were purely commercial organisations and were least bothered about social welfare. “No organisation regulates itself as that leads to a clash of interests,” he said, adding that the rating system which was being followed by the electronic channels today was a big flaw.
Sabeen Agha said that freedom of expression was there, but not much responsibility was displayed as the media houses didn’t invest in training. Ejaz Wasay, head of the IoBM’s Media Studies department, explained the MRII and its workings. He thanked the USAID and the Citizens’ Media Forum for their cooperation in holding the seminar.