All political parties in the Punjab Assembly on Friday passed a unanimous resolution against certain sections of the media for adopting an irresponsible attitude which could adversely affect the constitutional arrangement in the country and derail democracy.

It has been said in the resolution that the all members of the house vehemently condemn the irresponsible propaganda campaign against democratic institution and public representatives and have demanded of the media to stop blasphemous and baseless programs against democratic institutions, political leaders and public representatives in nation’s interest.

As per details, Sana Ullah Masti Khail of PML-N, in presence of Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif presented this [historical] resolution in the Punjab Assembly against media, which was approved unanimously while the media walked out from the press gallery to protest against the resolution.

The media men torched documents of the resolution and chanted slogans. The media announced to boycott the coverage of the Senate proceedings until withdrawal of the resolution.

Media has been paying greater focus on information [disinformation] than investigating journalism. It reflects a degree of non serious news process; mostly stories are tabloid stories or based on feedback from spy agencies. Targeting the President and the PPP gets the highest priority in news processing.

The PA resolution has demanded of the media to shun telecasting humiliating and distasteful programs and parodies against honorable female members of the assembly. The operative part of the resolution demands that responsible sections of the media avoid presenting baseless, humiliating and irresponsible programmes against democratic institutions and political leaders in the larger interests of the nation and the country. The resolution also demands the government to constitute a committee comprising assembly members and media representatives, which should take note of this situation and present doable recommendations.”

So, what’s wrong in it? A so-called champion of the rights to freedom of expression [intolerant media] could not tolerate criticism and unanimous resolution passed by peoples’ representative house.

However, the house agreed with the sacrifices rendered by responsible and objective journalists and paid homage to them. The house demanded of the responsible of freedom of media to play role for eliminating irresponsible reporting and propaganda against political leaders, to gain specific interests.

When we examine the frequency of debate and discussion on selected issues, we find that editorial contents are very much critical towards civilian govt and supportive of anti democratic forces.

We are facing critical issues like terrorism, democratic dearth and questions related to federation, and media remains focused on NRO, judges issue and their remarks, fake degrees and morality of politicians. Coverage of these [non] issues, of course, dwarfs the coverage of human causalities in Pakistan’s war against Taliban and its impact on social and psychological life and issues related to democracy and federation.

The deficiency of public interest stories as the political saga is in the limelight which leads to an information gap. There is no effective citizen’s oriented responsible journalism to transform the citizens into active and effective citizens. It seems that efforts are again being made to malign politicians in general and parliamentarians in particular.

In our opinion the content and tone of media is very much anti democracy and constitutes hate speech against parliamentarians. what is happening in the media is to brand politicians and parliament as inept, corrupt and dishonest. Instead of populist and biased journalism we need citizens oriented responsible, democratic journalism.

Democracy and press freedom are inseparable. But there is no such thing as freedom without responsibility. Responsibility demand pro democratic and balanced reporting. Some sections of the media have used this relatively new found freedom irresponsibly and invited this kind of intervention, as we at the LUBP have been warning repeatedly.

The media has failed to self-regulate and hold itself accountable by setting up institutions [press council] and structures [code of conduct] that provide mechanisms for redress of complaints by the public and affected groups. The Press Council instituted by General Musharraf failed to become functional and there is no such forum for complaints against the electronic media.

There is a need to make the media more effective and imperative in order to provide valid information to people instead of promoting sensationalism. Facts should not be overlapped with professional opinions of journalists. This trend is now common in newspapers that they include reporters’ personal and biased opinion [editorial judgment] in news. Most of the working journalists, ignoring facts, highlight their own views, which is against the professional ethics of journalism.

So we suggest that media should report objectively, it’s not its duty to give subjective judgement. It should give correct and accurate information to the society or else its role would not be more than a problem creator would. The country is in a state of turmoil and media men, being watchdog, should play responsible role by disseminating correct and right information

Sadly, we have no organized entity of citizens, concerned citizen groups, which can create liaison between citizens and media. There is no denying that there is a need to evolve a code of conduct for the media that takes into account issues of objectivity, accuracy, fairness and balance. If we as a nation really want to live in a democratic order, then we have to monitor and review how Pakistan is front paged, headlined and how it is editorialized? Various reviews of the contents and conduct of the media (by the LUBP and PMW) give credence to the currently recognized phenomenon of “bias and anti democratic journalism”. We have also seen media role as an arbitrator between two parties in various cases. Media is just betraying a populist verdict, which cannot be tolerated, people will not bear media nauisnce.

Although Pakistan has come a long way in terms of responsibility, the private media scene is still in its embryonic stage, as it has strong bearing on the future of democracy and people of Pakistan. There is a very little debate on the role and responsibility of private corporate media. Politicians [true representative of people] should demonstrate solidarity in their ranks on this matter, leaving apologetic attitude.

We, the concerned democratic citizens, also suggest that federal and provincial governments should also initiate nationwide debate on “role and responsibility of media in democratic dispensation”, as it is essential for democratic evolution.

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