Journalism under threat in Pakistan

November 11 2007

Pakistan’s current ‘State of Emergency’, has led to arrest without charge of many journalists, and the attempted crippling of press and broadcast media. In the past week the army has stormed TV stations and printing presses, halting their production.
Yet despite this, the Pakistani media and its consumers have found ways to solve these problems, to get the news that they want and get their opinions across.The citizens in Pakistan have expressed their opinions strongly through the internet and shed a detailed account of how the average Pakistani feels about the situation. The anonymity provided by the internet has also allowed them to speak in full confidence. A blogger who goes by the screen name Wahidi said: “It’s disgusting, the media is under attack, the law is under attack, dictatorship is taking over and not a single Pakistani civilian is to be seen on the streets protesting. Everyone is concerned about their own family. We call ourselves Muslims, but to what extent are we acting upon what the Q’uran tells us, we're all ignorant.”
After the army managed to shut down the desired cable stations and newspapers, reports came through that a large number of people went out to buy satellite dishes in order to receive their desired media.
Blogger Omar R. Quraishi posted on a local blog based in Karachi: “A resident in Isloo told me that a steep fine has been imposed on the purchase of satellite dishes in order to stop people from accessing media.”
Main domestic news provider GEO news has begun streaming via the internet and also producing an audio only broadcast over the web. However because it has been shut down over the air waves in almost all parts of the country it’s internet traffic has become so heavy that it is at the time of writing having to present itself in light text format.
It is worth mentioning that even though General Musharraf has tried to suppress the media, GEO has remained objective and has continued to simply provide a bulletin based news service without heavily criticizing the government or dwelling on its own situation as an institution, possibly with thought to not angering General Musharraf. Freedom of speech within the Pakistani media has been under threat for some time. Blogging on certain websites in Pakistan has been banned or blocked since the Danish Cartoon scandal first broke in September 2005, and even though that has long since died down there is no evidence that the ban has been lifted. One of the sites, which was completely blocked was the very popular blogger.com.
What is great and brings hope to this situation as that, just as in Burma back in August the people and/or press of Pakistan have refused to be silenced, and it is the power of the internet that has allowed them to make themselves heard on a global level, and now knowing that the international community is watching may be one of the largest positive steps to forcing General Musharraf to resolve the situation peacefully. This is more likely in Pakistan than in Burma because Pakistan has a greater number of dependences and allegiance with the rest of the international community, especially in respect to the war on terror than Burma has.
By Sam Park

The do's and dont's in journalism

Almost every country has their own practices when it comes to press ethics. They are usually written down in a statement, often called a code of ethics. At the moment there are almost 40 different national codes in Europe alone.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists states what journalists should do and what they should be careful with. For example, number three of the code states: "The journalist shall report only in accordance with facts of which he/ she knows the origin. The journalist shall not suppress essential information or falsify documents". The journalist shall, in other words, only report facts and avoid publishing false information. European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) also subscribes to this declaration.

The British Code of Practice is another code describing what the journalist should do. It is longer than many other codes with its 16 clauses covering different topics such as harassment and financial journalism and it sticks to the European style of advicing what a journalist should do and what he/she must be careful with.

Other codes do the opposite as they focus on what the journalist should avoid. One such code is the The Australian code of ethics. The main prority for members of MEAA - Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the organisation that covers media in Australia, is to commit themselves to
· Honesty
· Fairness
· Independence
· Respect for the rights of others

10 out of 12 Australian clauses in the MEAA code focus on what the journalist should not do. The two remaining ones state that you should respect grief and that a journalist should do his outmost to avoid errors.