Raising the bar: ‘Media only focuses on sellable information’

Seminar focuses on professional standards in journalism and PR.

LAHORE:

Lack of training and education has resulted in professional standards being compromised in journalism and public relations, participants of a seminar held at the Hameed Nizami Press Institute Pakistan said on Tuesday.

The Institute’s director Absar Abdul Ali said that media and public relations were media for disseminating information to the public. He said both institutions bridged the gaps between the public and the government.

Ali said that the Institute had been working on capacity building of media personnel. It had conducted seminars and training workshops for journalists to better equip them with the demands of their profession. Ali said seminars on citizen journalism and cartoon journalism had resulted in promoting the trends in the electronic media.

“Capacity building of journalists has never been a priority of the media organisations,” said Ahmad Faraz of Dawn. Faraz, a journalist for 25 years, said the number of true professionals in both journalism and public relations was negligible. He said it was vital to revisit the professional standards in media.

Faraz said the role of a public relations department was to ensure sustained efforts to communicate with the public. “Lack of capacity, research and communication theory practices in public relations result in an absence of a coherent strategy,” he added.

Dr Muhammad Tariq Buccha, president of the Public Relations Society of Pakistan, said it was unfortunate that public relations departments were limited to marketing their own departments. “The goal of public relations and media should be to provide accurate information to the masses,” he said. Dr Buccha said currently only ‘sellable information’ is focused on by the media. He suggested that all journalism students be provided scholarships by media organisations to train them professionally during their academic learning.

Nawai Waqt Deputy Editor Saeed Aasi said there was a lack of professionalism in the field of journalism which needded to be addressed by all the stakeholders especially the management of media organisations. “Media organisations fail to attain professionalism by depriving journalists of training programs,” he said.

Dr Ahsan Akhtar Naz, director of the Institute of Mass Communication of Punjab University highlighted the growing significance of public relations in the current era. “Even political parties have their dedicated public relations departments, which was previously a privilege of only government institutions,” he said.

Dr Naz said the public relations department had always enjoyed significant influence over the media in the past. However, he added the influence had died out with the immense recent pressure on the media for transparency. Dr Naz said it was important for every institution to make its public relations department competent. He also stressed the importance of training journalists and public relation professionals.

“Training should be made mandatory for practicing professionals and the institutions they work for,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2011.