Noor-ul-Ain Siddiqui خبریں ، رائے یا تحریک English

to be checked

پاکستانی میڈیا: خبریں ، رائے یا تحریک

نور العین صدیقی

BS-III 118

Pakistani Media: News, Opinion or Movement

Translation by Noor-ul-Ain Siddiqui

BS-III MC 118

Urdu to English

In Pakistan, the coverage of the march that is organized by PTI and Tahir ul Qadri, is it neutral and fair or the media has also become a part of this drive.

Considering this topic, from social media to several other circles, a debate is taking place.

Senior journalist Ziauddin; says that now TV channels or news channels are no longer the same, they have become propagandists channels - Geo group is a part of the government campaign whereas four to five other big channels are working against the government, that is why this show is given much hype in the coverage.

From Lahore, it's been hours since their channels have continuously aired the special transmission, the news and their centre of debates are related to the march only.

In Pakistan, journalists organizations actively participate in these roles and senior journalist, Mazhar Abbas, also takes part in debates on TV programs.

They say that not the entire media but a certain part of it reflects their desires by their coverage content. Beside that, there is another area of media which seems to be in the favour of the government and they are the ones who are judging that this march might be a cause to damage the democracy.

Around millions of people in the country, a decent amount of population is part of this movement which has been told by the organizations, TV channels and journalists where Mazhar Abbas is also a part in it.

They say there is a huge number of people taking part in this march and this can not be ignored.

Before the march, the government advertisement campaign aired on many new channels yet in the past we can not find any advertising campaigns including PTI and Tahir ul Qadri.

Senior journalist Ziauddin Ahmed claims; "these channels are taking money from some sources because round the clock meaning 24 hours transmission are telecasted without any commercial break which means someone must be providing them with financial support because they are not of those who take the loss but the people with business minds"

The president of the department of mass communication from Federal Urdu university, thinks that it looks like the army is controlling the media's message and is promoting a particular kind of news that seems to be against the Democratic system.

At the time of Pervez Musharraf's government, not many sources were trying to control the media but this time it appears to be different.

When the people's party government came to power, the memo scandal, the Raymond Davis, the Abbottabad operation when they attacked the salala check post, It took an extreme change in the media control policy that still continued after the change of governors.

Dr. Tauseef says that the purpose of controlled policy is to give the message to the public that our democratic system is weak and the political parties are not working properly to solve the problems thus the only solution to this is for the army to come in power. That is the reason why a certain topic is shown rather exaggerated.

Senior journalist Mazhar Abbas' opinion seems to be different from Dr Tauseef.

He offers that he shouldn't claim that the media is controlled however it's clear that they have back up support. In a manner, we can say that management is in control rather than the entire organization; also considering that in Pakistan a journalist has not enough freedom to outright speak his own language compared to other states.

The news channels which are aired in Pakistan are considered to be infotainment channels.

Senior journalist Ziauddin Ahmed, who was a well known English editor says; "nowadays, the news and the views policy is in the hands of a channel's head. The authorities who have no link with the profession are dictating the campaign"

"Nowadays, professional journalists are doing jobs because lately jobs are difficult to find and after getting a big amount of money, if one will go home with empty hands then it seems to be a big problem. That's why these professional journalists have decided to go with the agreements."

Now, Pakistani media will be in pressure.

In Pakistan, a contentious cyber crime bill has been passed and just in days, it may become a law but cyber units that are working still have objections. What are the problems that even after 55 arrangements, social media and online free opinion supporters are still worried?

In the cyber crime bill, PTI has the right to decide what to obstruct or detach any content or website that is reported, looks censored or illegal.

Nighat Dad, who is working for cyber rights says; the bill does not explain what are the reasons for any content to go being contentious and it is also not clear that who people are they that will notice if any website goes into certain categories. That's why it's not suitable to give full authority to an only organization.

Nighat Dad explains; the practice and examples that were made by PTI in the past are enough to frighten us. Like YouTube being banned for 3 years and suddenly issued orders which showed us that thousands of websites were shut down because they were vulgar and for such decisions the people have no trust in the institution."

Nighat Dad fears if the internet companies, Facebook, Twitter and Google does not listen, then just like in the past YouTube was shut down, it seems they can be completely banned in Pakistan too.

Advocate Yasser Latif Hamdani says that it's not right to give PTI full rights on this aspect, He says that the people who are working in certain institutions have different mindset and religious beliefs.

Due to insufficient definition of many words, they can remove the broad minded person's website and PTI have worked on such things before but now they have got a legal right.

Save the user's data :

In the cyber crime bill the one who provides the internet access to the users has directed to save the users file and at least for one year, they are required to be saved, so that authorities have the right to use the data for any investigation.

Nighat Dad says that this is against the rights of privacy. "It's not clear that data is not selected for the certain people or interested ones or for the criminals or secures the data of common people.

As a Pakistani citizen, one has the official right to take legal action against those who access their privacy. This will be secured data of every person. There is no clarification of this as well.

Cyber stalking , counterfeiting and spamming.

The cybercrime bill has strict penalties for those who send vulgar and prohibited things to anyone.

Yasser Latif Hamdani says, "If I were to receive any unwanted emails, the other person do not have to answer and if I'm using it to contact someone for the first time but someone might use it against me"

Due to cyber stalking, there is fear that because of no clarity, someone can frame a person guilty of stalking them and the penalty for this is one year.

There is a doubt in the cyber bill that you can't upload someone's pictures on the internet without permission.

Nighat Dad says, "there is no personal or public valued description, if a person goes to any event, rallies, captures a photo and other people happen to be included, then it's unclear if they may make legal notice against the one who uploaded the picture on social media."

"These days, there is a trend of selfies on social media which include many people together in the background, it could've been a decent privacy policy if this was better explained"

According to Nighat Dad, the most worrisome act to locals which could be considered a crime would be spamming.

According to the cyber bill, the one who sends unwanted messages to someone will then be charged 3 months jail and 50,000 rupees fine.

Nighat Dad says, "Due to this, those are also included who use mobile access to advertise their small business because this will be easy for them, It'd be more fruitful if they had expanded their means like fraud, criminal or other serious things"

In the entire world, spamming will not be considered as a crime but according to this passed bill, spamming is now a crime in Pakistan.