We think that all the stake holders, apparently only two - the Govt. and the Jang Group - were vying  with each other making claims for their respective sides, while the working journalists deemed it an opportunity to create spaces to the betterment of their working conditions within this industry. They were successful , at least, when for the first time the newspaper owners, from the biggest news group in Pakistan, came publicly to recognize their worst working conditions employ under the clutches of a contract system and promised  to regularize their services. On the other hand the government, did its best to project owners’ tax evasion practices. But the critical juncture here emerges, when we saw that no single group be it CPNE, APNS, APNEC, trade unions and press clubs were able to positively engage all of them in a dialogue and bring an agenda for people as democracy. 

JRC views that this controversy has brought forth the need of an intermediary and independent media regulatory body. We need to have all the actors involved to invoke foundational and ethical principals on which the civil society works together in an institutional framework.

It is high time that we take an eclectic view of the whole situation and look beyond our partial interests. Members / veterans of different media organisations from working journalists to newspaper owners, judiciary, civil rights groups, consumer groups and other concerned sections of the civil society _ state, civil society and corporate sectors combined should be asked to form an independent forum with a mandate to regulate media industry. For, JRC believes that the muscles showing exercises and  informal webs of owners / Government’s power to single handedly decide upon the destiny of the ‘fourth pillar’ will further exclude common folks of this society which has already been splitting into uncontrollable sectoral, read sectarian divisions.  That’s the crux of this problem. A Complaints Commission, or The Press Council,  with all concerned sections, may be the right answer to evolve mechanisms in the media industry _ to tackle issues from within when they arise and are required to be addressed.

Media-Government Relations: A collection of essays on Jang-government row, 1999 is a must reading for newspeople, prospective journalists, social activists, students of Journalism, politics, and keen observers of Pakistan as to judge the whole issue of press freedom and its relations with the social direction that we are heading.

Let’s hope this effort takes us to a meaningful dialogue.

Phone: + 92 42 6666404 - 6687827
 

 

 
E-mail: jrc@syberwurx.com