Fawad Chaudhry’s
insistence
Information
Minister Fawad Chaudhry told a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on
Information on February 25 that there was a need for a centralised regulatory
authority for all types of media, print, electronic and digital. The minister
mustered in support of his idea the convergence of news and entertainment in
mobile phones because of technological advances. That may be so, although it is
not yet a situation where the mobile phone reigns supreme unchallenged over all
other sources of information. However, how this development justifies the
setting up of the proposed Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PMRA) to
oversee (and control) all media was not explained by the worthy minister. To
his credit, the minister at least paid lip service to consultations with
political leaders and stakeholders to forge a consensus on the proposal and
that PMRA would be free from government intervention. At present, the minister
informed the committee, the Press Council of Pakistan (PCP) looks after matters
related to the print media, the Pakistan Electronic Media Authority (PEMRA) the
affairs of the electronic media and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
(PTA) digital media and cellular companies. Fawad Chaudhry hastened to add that
the new regulatory body was by no means being established to curb media
freedoms. Contrary to the minister’s claim that the media enjoys more freedom
than any other country in the Muslim or Third world (a dubious distinction even
if accepted), media practitioners and users know the kind of control of news
and information to bring it into conformity with the establishment’s narrative
that has been at work in recent years. Media houses have been compelled on pain
of financial survival if they do not toe the officially certified line.
Self-censorship therefore is rife. The other contentious statement made by
Fawad Chaudhry to the Standing Committee was to shed crocodile tears for the
plight of media workers, especially electronic media workers, who the minister
argued did not enjoy the same protections under the law for their rights as the
print media workers. He also bent his ‘concern’ for electronic media owners having
to deal with problems stemming from being subject to different regulatory
authorities to argue they would ‘benefit’ from the establishment of a centralised
regulatory body. In the first place, Fawad Chaudhry should have taken the
trouble to point out which are these ‘different regulatory bodies’ that
electronic media owners have to deal with, since his statement contradicts what
he had said about the existence and function of PEMRA. Second, he should also
have explained how a centralised media regulatory authority would benefit such
owners. Merely asserting such conclusions without explicating and filling in
the argument remains less than convincing. Last but not least, Information
Minister Fawad Chaudhry thought little of sprinkling salt on the wounds of
media workers by asserting that advertising was shifting from news channels to
digital forums and thereby creating problems for the traditional news media. He
neglected to mention his government’s role in creating unprecedented problems
for the media by hitting it in its pocket where it hurts. Government
advertising has been cruelly slashed both in quantum and rates under the Pakistan
Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government. Whatever financial difficulties the media
houses entire had been experiencing before, this ‘gift’ from the PTI government
has led to thousands of journalists and media workers losing their jobs
throughout the country as a result of the shrinking earnings of all media
houses.
The minister’s
effort to paint the government’s intentions vis-à-vis the freedom and
independence of the media in a rosy light simply does not hold water. Print,
electronic and even social media are being subjected as we speak to an
intolerably high level of self-censorship and control through intimidation and
worse. Media houses are being squeezed financially through the government’s
advertising policy. The most dire consequences of all this have fallen first
and foremost on the heads of media workers. In any case, in democracies the
media is free of the kind of regulation envisaged in the PMRA idea. Our
Constitution’s Article 19 too empowers freedom of the media and expression. The
minister’s insistence on monitoring the media through one overarching
regulatory authority not only cuts across the grain of these freedoms, it
raises suspicions that what is being proposed is a draconian censorship regime
to outrival even the worst military dictatorship in our history.
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