Journalists asked to be impartial and objective

Reporting, analysis of events impacts the common reader: experts.

Journalists should understand the contexts of conflict in order to report and analyse them   objectively while also ensuring their own security in violence-hit areas. This was the crux of a training workshop organised by Pak Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) and the Canadian High Commission on Monday, said a press release.

Quetta Press Club President Saleem Shahid noted that as people’s perception of incidents of violence and terrorism is largely influenced by the way journalists report and analyze such events, the local journalists need to be more responsible.

Shahzada Zulfiqar, a senior journalist from Quetta, said that journalists in insurgency-hit Balochistan were more prone to threats than any other region of Pakistan.

Imdad Ali Soomro from Karachi said that the landscape of political violence in the city was becoming complex and lethal and journalists felt increasingly difficult to balance their reporting.

PIPS Director Muhammad Amir Rana argued that conflict in Pakistan was largely based on people’s ideological concerns rather than physical needs and interests, making it easy for extremists to operate.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th, 2012.