Colombo declaration

Whereever one goes, it’s always the same.  The press is blamed for the ills of society. This week, at an otherwise impressive conference on climate change held by the Habib University, one speaker talked about how the media highlights politics and terrorism, but doesn’t talk about climate change. That is not entirely true. But let us not allow facts to come in the way.

This paper continues to cover issues that relate to climate change consistently. It is our philosophy that the real challenges to Pakistan come from the sectors of education, health, population and environment. These are our real problems. But because many in the media by and large ignore these issues, we are judged in the same manner.

It has become somewhat fashionable to blame the media for everything. At social events, one has to only introduce themselves as a journalist and within minutes is in the firing line. One is asked to account not only for ourselves and our organisation, but also for others in the media, irrespective of the fact that ours is a free and vibrant press where everyone seems to be toeing their own line. In some case, more than one line.

In fact, at a seminar held by the Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka (PCCSL) this month, I made this comparison. The PCCSL was set up as an outcome of the Colombo Declaration of Press Freedom and Social Responsibility, ten years back. It was a time of great turmoil in that island state. The editor of the respected Sunday Times, Sinha Ratnatunga calls it a “fair exchange” by media organisations of that country at a time when they were campaigning for the repeal of the draconian Criminal Defamation laws.

Sinha was at the centre of the storm then. Today that storm has blown over and in a decade the PCCSL has managed to take up cases against media houses on stories that members of the general public found inaccurate or defamatory. The system, the only one of its kind in South Asia, seems to have worked to some extent.

But things have changed. In Sri Lanka now, the challenge has to do with a docile media, as noted by one speaker. With self-regulation in place, the Sri Lankan media knows its responsibilities to its readers but at the same time is working under parameters and in an environment where the media is losing its diversity. In contrast, the Pakistani media is free and vibrant. And as we see, there are few parameters that we work within.

Some media houses are an exception. Our own newspaper has an ombudsman in place who can give a decision on a complaint of a reader and we are bound to follow his instructions. But in most cases, we are a “madar pidar azad” media, as one columnist puts it.

The bridge in the Sri Lankan media was so wide, that as journalist Mazhar Abbas recalled at a media ethics round-table in Karachi recently, the Sinhala journalists and the Tamil journalists would not even speak to each other.

Things in that sense have changed for the better in Sri Lanka. But in Pakistan, things seem to be heading the other way. A valid question for Pakistani journalists now is how do we, as the media, regulate ourselves. Do we see ourselves as accountable to anyone, and if so who would that be?

Some look at the days of the monopoly of PTV and Radio Pakistan as better times. But those who fight for media freedom argue that a free and uncontrolled media is better than one that is in chains. One need look no further than the two books by journalist Zamir Niazi, “Press in chains” and then the “Press under Siege” which chronicle the black days of media restriction in Pakistan to understand the stifling environment in which journalists worked previously. We are better off now.

Now instead of government censorship we have self-censorship in place. We have to decide what goes and, more important, we are responsible for the repercussions of what we do. For most parts, the government has shrugged off its responsibility of monitoring the media.

Instead of self-censorship, one can argue for self-regulation, as we have seen in the Sri Lanka model. The question now is who will take the first step in this noble cause.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th,  2014.

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