Information Minister Kaira urges media to work sensibly

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Qamar Zaman Kaira, urged media owners to work sensibly, saying that the government has firm belief that independent and responsible media was imperative to flourish democracy in the country.

Addressing an inaugural session of the two-day conference on media ethics, the minister commended the unprecedented sacrifices of the media professionals. For the first time in the country’s history, he said the right to information had been ensured to the citizens through the passage of 18^th amendment in the Constitution.

He was of the opinion that the criticism of media was a vital element of the accountability process. However, he said that the elections were the real platform for accountability of a politician in the true sense of democracy.

Kaira added, “The present government has never stopped the advertisements of any media house despite the fact that certain media groups launched vilification campaign against it. Electronic media should verify facts before broadcasting a story”.

In his view, freedom of media also brings responsibility over the institutions and journalists, saying that there was no concept of independent media without responsibility.

He urged the media to adopt some code of conduct as three other pillars of state working under some rules and procedures. Rejecting the impression that the government has intention to impose any regulations on the media, he said that the media should develop its own code of ethics to run the industry.

The minister also appealed to the media to verify the facts before publishing, broadcasting and uploading a story. In his view, unauthentic news is tantamount to character assassination and media trial of people.

He noted, “The government was working to facilitate media growth, despite the fact that a section of press was involved in mudslinging against the PPP leadership. We will not allow any person or institution to use PCP for imposing curbs on the media as free media was the essence of democracy”.

Kaira said defamation laws are very strong in advanced democracies and nobody dares to indulge in character assassination of any person or institution.

He advised the media not to make caricatures of political figures as it was not in the national interest.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jun 29 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.