Implementation of media code of conduct stressed

LAHORE

Sensationalism in media has been disturbing society while a run of breaking news is affecting its credibility and shrinking the viewership, so professionals, owners and regulators should revisit their working to provide quality content to viewers and readers.

These views were expressed by the experts in a seminar on ‘Quality of media content, role of regulators, media professionals and owners’, here at a private university.

Addressing the audience, Dean of university, Dr Mugheesuddin Sheikh said that violent content was disturbing society, besides giving birth to lawlessness and terrorism. He went on to say that trend of digital communication is growing globally while junior journalists should not be allowed to comment, speak and write on sensitive and religious issues. He said media code of conduct, and ethics existed but not implemented by the regulators and media owners. Besides, international institutions are also violating the code of conduct and ethics, he observed.

He suggested that voice should be raised on the content created from the foreign funding of US and other western countries in order to bring in notice of these fund-raisers that all Pakistanis do not agree with the content given by them. He believed that reservations rose by the media professionals and other stakeholders on foreign funded content will be helpful in improvement of better content.

A veteran journalist said that electronic media of Pakistan is galloping like unleashed horse. He said everyone in electronic media speaks without thinking which is mother of all evils. He was of the view that the government did not provide required opportunities for media development and growth. Similarly, no step is taken by the government to strengthen the media industry. He believed that the media should not be under government control. 

Analyst Salman Abid said that research had vanished in the media while wide gap existed between the media and educational institutions while good journalists could be created by reducing this gap. He said the media owners were compromising on quality of content in the run of rating. He said the useless political debate was aired from 7pm to 12pm while impatience was increasing due to such violent content. In the wake of such content, development and social journalism was left behind while businessmen have captured the media to achieve their targets. He said the social media was going out of control which needed to be controlled. He commented that journalists were also out of control and do not want to be answerable to anyone which is increasing the problems. He suggested that young journalists must join practical journalism to bring about a change.Muhammad Usman said the Pakistan electronic media is in teething phase which will gradually mature.