Khawaja Amer

30th Nov, 2021. 04:01 pm

State control over media

Maryam Nawaz’s recent leaked audio has confirmed that government advertisements have been used to pressurise the media. Unfortunately, this kind of practice has been used time and again as illustrated in journalist and author Zamir Niazi’s book titled ‘The Press in Chains’. The book discusses at length such excesses of various regimes, both civilian and military, against the country’s media.

Earlier this week, the audio attributed to Maryam went viral in which she was heard ordering her media team to stop advertisements to several TV channels during the PML-N tenure. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Maryam confirmed that the audio attributed to her was authentic and she would not say that it was edited. The audio clip obviously demands a fact-finding exercise to take necessary action against Maryam.

The recorded incident took place during Nawaz’s government in late 2014 when Maryam was heading the newly formed Strategic Media Communication Cell (SMCC) operating out of the Prime Minister’s Office. Set up with the special approval of the then Prime Minister as part of the Information Ministry, the SMCC gradually evolved into a powerful unit, working under Maryam’s command. She tried to throttle the independence of media. The sad fact is that the assaults on freedom of press still continue unabated.

The media landscape in Pakistan is still notoriously complicated. Though there are more than 40 news channels and as many as 700 newspapers in print, the space for dissent is infinitesimal. Pakistan ranks 145 on the Global Press Freedom Index. Even the European Union (EU) has expressed deep concern over the lack of freedom of the press and violence against journalists in Pakistan. The EU said it is concerned about the frequently reported cases of violence, intimidation, abduction, and killing of journalists in Pakistan.

While the investigation against Maryam is on, PTI must also look at its own shortcomings in being unable to mend the relationship between the media and the government. As a first step, there is an urgent need to remove the flaws in the advertisement policy of the PTI government. The situation is getting worse and if the government does not review its advertisement policy in consultation with the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS), many publications will have to close down their operations, resulting in large scale retrenchment. This will lead to the unemployment of journalists and media workers.

Advertisement

Under the existing policy, the right to choose media has been withdrawn from all the government clients i.e. all the government and semi government organisations. Instead of selecting media of their choice keeping in view the demand of their ads, they now send their ads for publication in the media directly to Press Information Department (PID). The PID then distribute ads to the media of its choice depriving the client of their right.

Earlier, government organisations were free to place their ads in the media of their choice and PID could also add media of its choice, but not exceeding 25 percent. Now the ratio of 75:25 has been replaced with 100 percent enabling the government to give more ads to its favourite media and even deprive those which are against the government. This has resulted in considerable decrease in the number of advertisements as the sponsoring departments have curtailed advertising because they believe that their advertising was now being given to mostly unknown newspapers, which results in wastage of their budgets.

A case in point is the advertisement released by the Ministry of Information on March 7, 2021 which was issued to 143 APNS members and 112 non-APNS, mostly non-existing publications. Earlier incidentally, the then Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan had acknowledged in the Senate Standing Committee on Information that officers of her Ministry were involved in disseminating advertisements to dummy publications of their choice.

An official of the Information Ministry also confirmed that there were two categories of dummy papers. The first one includes those who obtain a title of a paper and hold it to negotiate with some potential investor, but do not go for the printing of the paper. The second category of dummy papers includes those publications that are printed only after getting advertisements and show dubious circulation figures.

The APNS committee has therefore urged the Federal Government to restore the rights of the client departments to select their media and authorise the regional offices of PID only to recommend newspapers in their respective regions. The members of the Executive Committee complained that genuine publications were being ignored during distribution of advertisements.

In another resolution, the Executive Committee noted that with the new policy, the slow payment of government advertisements has had a negative impact on newspapers. This situation has resulted in acute liquidity crisis for member publications which needs to be addressed by the Federal and Provincial Governments on a priority basis.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has set up a committee to probe Maryam’s confession. The inquiry committee would report its findings on irregularities in the allotment of advertisements to media organisations during the PML-N government’s last tenure.

There is no doubt that Maryam’s confession amounts to a concerted attempt to throttle the independence of the media sector and, of course, financial irregularities in the government’s advertising budget. Sadly, it is an open secret because every government has been secretly resorting to such unfair methods to stifle the press.

 

 

The writer is Sub-Editor, Bol News

Advertisement

Next OPED