Free press

Life is difficult for a journalist in Pakistan. That’s what a recent report also confirms. Titled ‘Pakistan Media Freedom Report 2019’, it says that seven journalists were murdered and 15 others injured in the line of duty during the outgoing year. Besides, a good 60 were also booked over various charges, including those related to terrorism, says the report released by the CPNE on Sunday. Among those posing threats to the lives of journalists are non-state actors and outlawed militant groups, besides mysterious and unidentified elements. That not a single killer or attacker has been brought to justice is what describes the apathy towards the dangerous treatment meted out to the representatives of this “fourth pillar of the state” called media. And that Pakistan is ranked 142 on the World Press Freedom Index out of 180 countries of the world shows how “free” the media in our country is.

With Pakistan’s ranking on the index more or less the same over the last two decades, no government over the years can escape the blame for a media that continues to be suppressed, intimidated, chained and silenced. Even the incumbent government had planned to set up media courts to, what they said, resolve journalists’ grievances, but dropped the proposal in the wake of a strong resistance from the various stakeholders. It goes without saying that no democracy can flourish without a free press. Political leaders, therefore, have the biggest stake in free press. It’s the politicians who, eventually, stand to lose for not making their contributing to freedom of the press when in power. The freedom the representatives of a government allow to the media is the freedom they benefit from when in the opposition. And the curbs they impose on the media are, in fact, the curbs on their own future. The role of free press in institution building — as in other areas of core national concern — cannot be over-emphasised either. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2020.

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