Media ethics, safety: Government, media owners urged to work in concert

Speakers say ‘political affiliations of journalists’ marring media ethic.

ISLAMABAD: Speakers have urged the government, media owners and civil society to play a collective role for ensuring ethics and safety of journalists.

They were speaking at a two-day annual conference titled “Ethical Dilemmas for Media in Pakistan: Challenges and Opportunities”, organised by Rozan at a local hotel here on Thursday.

Senior journalist Ghazi Salahuddin said that workable media ethics were only possible through close coordination between the government and media owners.

While talking about print media, he said that the situation reflected that people in Pakistani generally do not have good reading habits.

“A society that is not connected with books will think and act differently when compared with a society that has good connection with books and printed material,” Salahuddin said while shedding light on the history of the media in the subcontinent.

Senior journalist M Ziauddin said that the growing number of media organisations has also played a role in worsening the state of media ethics. He said that since the inception of Pakistan, no government seriously worked on evolving media ethics.

Journalist Mazhar Abbas said that “successive governments tried to suppress the media and buy journalists instead of giving freedom to them”.

Columnist Nazeer Laghari mentioned that there has been a deterioration of media ethics in Pakistan owing to the “political affiliation” of journalists”.

Media analyst Adnan Rehmat said that during the last 12 years, more than 1,200 journalists have been murdered in the world and 113 of them belonged to Pakistan. He said that Pakistan is an unsafe country for journalists and “the government will have to take some serious measures for their safety”.

Sohail Sangi, a journalist from Hyderabad, suggested that media ethics must be given special importance in mass communication curriculum and working journalists must be given training on media ethics through workshops and seminars.

Rozan Managing Director Babar Bashir, journalists including Maria Imran, Jamshad Rizwani, Sadaf Baig, Fareed Rais, and Owais Toheed also spoke.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2015.