'Media should educate masses on real issues’

Adam Paul says there is no news related to public interest being printed for the past few years

LAHORE: In order to become a good content creator, media workers should embrace themselves with political consciousness and paly their role in educating people about democracy, progress and development of the country.

These views were expressed by Adam Paul, a labour rights activist, associated with Red Workers Front while speaking at a discussion “Media and Marxism” organised by journalists of Lahore.



He said it was highly unfortunate that only statements of VIPs were being published on front pages of newspapers and no news related to public interest was given importance. “This is the reason why our media is losing credibility as the interest of public was not being addressed.”

Malik Ali, a working journalist, considered media as a tool of creating propaganda. “Now, even a common man could point fingers and favour any party’s agenda or accuse it without any credibility,” he added.

Imran Gabol, another journalist, said despite this entire despicable situation in which media acted as a propaganda tool for different stake-holders and under the hegemony of right wing mind-set, role of a journalist cannot be ignored. He was of the view that a journalist was an actual content producer and could beat all barriers if he did some conscious effort.



“Now, the working journalists are just clerks who are able to read and write but are unaware of history, politics, philosophy and literature etc,” Journalist Sher Ali remarked. The speakers also pointed out that the poor condition of journalism was related to job insecurity and bad working conditions.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2017.