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Since the days of General Ziaul Haq and his cohorts who are still in business {1977-2005} hired several journalists to present a controlled picture {readinformation} in several magazines/newspapers like Takbeer and Ummat and many others and several journalists of that particular class are in every newspaper. But after 9/11 many things changed and print media took a back seat and came the Boom of Private TV Channels and with these channels comes
Plagiarism par excellence particularly in the talk shows of ARY ONE {specifically Dr. Shahid Masood of Views on News}, GEO TV {Adnan Awan and Shams Kazmi}, GEO TV {Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain}, AAJ TV {Syed Talat Hussain} and above all CNBC {Mujahid Barelvi}. The agenda of these gentlemen to project an image of "˜Enlightened Moderation' of PAKISTAN and his other
Praetorian cohorts. Zia used to exploit Islam, Quran, and Hadith with a twist to perpetuate his Unlawful Rule whereas the present Dictator has been using the nomenclature of Liberalism, Secularism, and Progressivism to perpetuate his Unlawful Rule. Neither Zia nor Musharraf were sincere with Islam, Quran, Hadith, Liberalism, Secularism and Progressivism respectively. The days of Paid Journalists are gone but a new era of Paid Experts, Hosts and Anchors is
arrived. The PEMRA {Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority} has replaced Intelligence
agencies and ISPR who used to Brief and De-brief selected brand of Journalists, now PEMRA doing the same with hosts of the Talk Shows and other such Tamashas (Circus) prevalent these days in the name of Views on News with Dr. Shahid Masood, Q&A with P.J.Mir, Alim On Line with Dr Aamir Liaquat Hussain {member of MQM i.e. a Barelvi (A Muslim sect of grave worshippers also has representation in MMA) Version of Jamat-e-Islami}, Aneeq Ahmed with AGHAZ, Abdul Rauf with 50 Minute, Mujahid Barelvi on CNBC, Mazhar Abbas on HUM TV, Alia Salahuddin d/o Ghazi Salahuddin with George Ka Pakistan.etc.etc.
Dr. Shahid Masood at the end of his program always advises his viewers to look after yourself, and people around you so to enable viewers to take Dr. Sahab as an angel on earth. There is a very bad thing going on that very channel of Dr. Shahid Masood and that is Plagiarism because 90% of his commentary and facts and figures are consist upon the work of Scholars who he
never mentioned like for example his most famous program "The Hidden Truth" was actually a translation of Arabic Program relayed on Al-Jazeera TV and the commentary he gave was consisted upon a book by Dr. Israr Ahmed but both of these sources were never mentioned ever, and now Dr. Shahid's book/CD/DVDs are in the market with his name on it. Recently in a
program he read a whole chapter from a famous book "˜Awaz-e-Dost' by Mukhtar Masood without having any shame and decency to at least mention the learned and humble scholar like Mukhtar Masood. Dr. Shahid's heart pains and cried on the plight of Muslims while telling the gory details of "˜Resistance against the USA in Baghdad, Tikrit, Faluja and other places' in one of his program while narrating the detail of a wanted Terrorist Abu-Musab Al Zarqawi he used the complete
byline story of Journalist named Pepe Escobar {Read the complete stories Taliban in Texas: Big Oil hankers for old pals and Pipelineistan revisited by Pepe Escobar appeared in www.atimes.com links are in the notes} obviously without even mentioning the learned journalist. But that is not the end Dr. Shahid used only those stories which are not detrimental to the Government because the same Pepe Escobar filed an story about Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders
having closed links with several MMA Leaders, Pepe Escobar had indepth disucssed the Taliban's Mullahs visit to US State Department before 9-11 {The link is given below} nor Dr Shahid Masood mentions Arundhati Roy {Read the complete story War Is Peace by Arundhati Roy in the notes below} routs the present US Neo-Cons supporter of present Pakistani Regime and earlier the same US Neo-Cons were the supporters of Talibans. What Dr Shahid does is that he chooses the truth and news selectively to implement and enforced the agenda of of someone and he does it so innocently that it seems very harmless whereas the distortion he is causing can only be called worst kind of Plagiarism and that too with picking and choosing the truth.
It is very strange that during any self-created Crisis by the regime {e.g. Dr. Shazia Rape/Baluchistan insurgency}, Dr Shahid Masood "˜finds' himself in the centre of it e.g. nobody had that access to Dr. Shazia, Akber Bugti, Attaullah Mengal and Bugti's grandson Brahamdagh Bugti like Dr Shahid Masood. You might have noticed that recently when the Parliamentary Team wanted to go to meet Bugti in Dera Bugti, Baluchistan the Pakistan Armed Forces refused
clearance but isn't it strange that Dr. Shahid "˜successfully' conducted detailed interviews of Bugtis and not only that he recited letters from Dr. Shazia and even if that was not enough he travelled with Dr. Shazia and her husband from Islamabad to London or Dubai. Not a single noted journalist in Pakistan was successful enough to meet with Dr. Shazia while she was in impregnable security in Karachi. But years of blind following of everything we are told, we have
become so pathetic that nobody questions as to why there is always Dr Shahd Masood in the middle of conspiracy created by the regime?
Indus TV {PAF Shaheen Foundation} started talk shows just before 911 and whole purpose of Mr. Mujahid Barelvi to adopt a typical Military Establishment line to give any political talk show a turn that it would portray all the politicians in country responsible for every mess. Mujahid Barelvi tried his best before General Elections 2002 at the behest of someone to portray Politicians as responsible for every mess in the last 57 years whereas the reality is quite
different. What the establishment did with Pakistan is far worse than what the politicians did with this country. In a typical way all the programs of Mujahid Barelvi were edited in way that clear picture was never emerged at the end and Mujahid tried to play a part of Establishments' apologist and he failed miserably but for general public he succeeded in presenting a bad picture of country's politicians. The worse thing is that whole Indus TV and Indus Plus have become haunts for elite class's plagiarists whose work its CEO Ghazanfar Ali and Mujahid use to perpetuate the hidden agenda of Establishment.
Similarly on GEO TV, Dr Aamir Liaquat Hussain in his program Alim On Line instead of listening to the guests, tries to push Altaf Hussain's so-called Pragmatic Theory down the throats of Scholars and viewers as well. Instead to quoting authentic Quranic and Hadith references he takes the refuge of Fairy Tales and Concocted Hadiths to boost the unity amongst so-called Muslim Ummah, a unity that was finished the day Prophet Mohammad {PBUH} passed away. Actually MQM is a Barelvi version of Jamat-e-Islami and so-called Religious Fascism runs in the blood of the Muslims of the Sub-Continent particularly the Urdu Speaking class some way or the other they end up using Religion which they violate so thoroughly daily without fail. In the
same GEO TV, Mr. Aneeq Ahmed in his program "˜Aghaz' instead of listening to the guests who as compare to host are genuine scholars of repute, the host tried to put his or GEO' words in the mouths of Scholar. The host want to solve the problem of pathetic Muslim Ummah and even more pathetic Pakistani Nation rather MOB through a single TV Talk Show. Instead of putting
his words in the mouth of other Aneeq must listen to the scholars.
The 200 years of British slavery added further miseries into the lives and psyche of Sub-Continent Muslims, there is a program in BBC known as Hard Talk with a very shrewd and sharp host Tim Sebastian who ruthlessly fingers the guests to get truth out of them but Tim Sebastian knows what he is doing and he know his art and subjects well whereas the ridiculous
parody of Hard Talk prevalent in Private TV Channles Indus, ARY, GEO, AAJ make all of us sick to the bone and soul. Like Iftikhar Ahmed GEO and P.J. Mir of ARY do on their programs because there is no sense of direction and the programs end up in shouting and even the Hosts didn't ask them what should be asked, again they try to put ISPR words into the mouth of hosts
they invite.
Recently another Tamasha {show} in the name of Enlightened Moderation or Secularism relayed by NGO Mafia on GEO TV, this time they used late. Eqbal Ahmed's life to exploit his works and articles to serve the selfish interest of Military Junta using Secularism and Liberalism. Very few people know that Late. Eqbal Ahmed's entry was banned in Pakistan during General Yahyah {due to Kissinger and Nixon's interest in China through Pakistan} and General Zia, and Eqbal carried death sentence on his head during the times of Musharraf's favourite dictator General Yahyah {Read two in-depth Eqbal Ahmed interviews conducted by by David Barsamian for Zmag and Alternative Radio and re-produced in Media Monitoring Network. Complete text in the links given in the notes} But these things were never mentioned on that particular program on Eqbal Ahmed {the program was the brainchild of Adnan Awan and Shams Kazmi and both were right hand men of Mujahid Barelvi in Indus Vision and now they are in GEO}. The program seemed to be an effort to counter Mullahs but several aspects of Late. Eqbal Ahmed's life were intentionally "˜dropped' from the program to appease the Military Regime of Musharraf. Particularly Eqbal's detailed articles against the Filthy Pakistani Military Establishment, Hindu Fundamentalism of RSS and BJP and his strong stand on Kashmir and ethnic divide were never mentioned in the GEO TV's so-called enlightened moderate program on Eqbal Ahmed. The articles are as {for detail text click the links given in Eqbals's article in the Notes.
Militarism and the State
Pakistan "“ Signposts to A Police State[Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1974]
Pakistan: Military Intervention [Le Monde Diplomatique, October 1977]
Pakistan in Crisis: an interview [Race and Class, XXII, No.2 1980]
Pakistan's Praetorian Curse [Dawn, 23 December 1989]
The Signals Soldiers Pick [Dawn, 12 November 1995]
India's Obsession, Our Choice [Dawn, 17 May 1998]
When Mountains Die [Dawn, 4 June 1998]
Nuclear Gains and Losses [Dawn, 14 June 1998]
Reason As Spectator [Dawn, 11 June 1998]
Chomsky views the media as an ideological system serving the powerful elites in society. He explains how governments get away with lying, how academics and intellectuals manufacture consent to the actions of government, and how the media confine debate to the conservative middle ground. Chomsky argues the Western media have neglected their questioning role, instead repeatedly giving primary access to intellectuals who defend the role of Western governments. He sees the media's role as producing consensus amongst the public
towards the ruling elites in government and business.
"The [media's] current mission is to ensure that any thought of controlling their destiny must be driven from the minds of the rascal multitude," he has written in, Year 501: The Conquest Continues. And, in Deterring Democracy, he writes: "The goal is to eliminate public meddling in policy formation".
Probably Chomsky's most known book in this country is Manufacturing Consent: the political economy of the mass media, which he wrote in 1988 with Edward Herman, a professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania. The Propaganda Model sketched out in this book describes the structures and influences that Chomsky believes produce systematic propaganda in the media. "It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalise dissent, and allow government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public."
The model puts forward five filters on our news:
* The size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth and profit orientation of the dominant media outlets;
* Advertising as the primary source of income for most media;
* The reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and `experts' funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power;
* `Flak' - criticism by the powerful of negative media statements - used as a means of disciplining the media;
* Control mechanisms of `anticommunism', `muslim fundamentalism', and so on.
"Most biased choices in the media arise from the preselection of right-thinking people, internalised preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the constraints of ownership, organisation, market, and political power," they write in Manufacturing Consent.
"It's intended to pick out major factors that frame the way an institution functions," says Chomsky. "Now as any scientist knows you start a rational inquiry by trying to identify the major factors and then there's a whole set of secondary and tertiary factors that interfere. If you really look down into the details you'll find all sorts of other things going on. I'll mention one which is known to any serious investigative journalist, and a lot of them use it.
"There are periodic scandals - meaning some horrible thing that happened by accident escapes, that's called a scandal - and the media feeders have to pretend to be very irate: how can our democracy survive etcetera etcetera. "It is well known among serious journalists that after a major scandal, like say Watergate or Iran-Contra or something, there is a period of a couple of months when the media tend to be more open. And then you can sneak in the stories that you've been storing up. "So if you take a close look at the media you'll discover that the really smart reporters often are coming out with things in that window of opportunity that opens up in reaction to the scandal.
In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky argues that the media establishes and defends the agenda of the dominant privileged groups in society. "The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises."
"Actually academic scholarship isn't all that different. If people start breaking out of the
expected framework - if they are esoteric enough it may not matter - but if they are anywhere near issues of policy of power, they may find themselves in trouble. "I know plenty of journalists who've been told look you're getting too emotional why don't you take off a bit of time and go to the metro desk and work on that sort of thing. {1}
He further said"¦
...Let me begin by counter-posing two different conceptions of democracy. One conception of democracy has it that a democratic society is one in which the public has the means to participate in some meaningful way in the management of their own affairs and the means of information are open and free.... An alternative conception of democracy is that the public
must be barred from managing of their own affairs and the means of information must be kept narrowly and rigidly controlled. That may sound like an odd conception of democracy, but it's important to understand that it is the prevailing conception....
Early History of Propaganda
...[The Wilson administration] established a government propaganda commission, called the Creel Commission, which succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save the world. That was a major achievement, and it led to a further achievement.
Right at that time and after the war the same techniques were used to whip up a hysterical Red
Scare, as it was called, which succeeded pretty much in destroying unions and eliminating such dangerous problems as freedom of the press and freedom of political thought. There was very strong support from the media, from the business establishment, which in fact organized, pushed much of this work, and it was in general a great success.
Spectator Democracy
...Walter Lippman, who was the dean of American journalists, a major foreign and domestic policy critic and also a major theorist of liberal democracy...argued that what he called a "revolution in the art of democracy," could be used to "manufacture consent," that is, to bring about agreement on the part of the public for things that they didn't want by the new techniques of propaganda.... ...He argued that in a properly functioning democracy there are classes of citizens.
There is first of all the class of citizens who have to take some active role in running general affairs.
That's the specialized class. They are the people who analyze, execute, make decisions, and run things in the political, economic, and ideological systems. That's a small percentage of the population... Those others, who are out of the small group, the big majority of the population, they are what Lippman called "the bewildered herd." We have to protect ourselves from the trampling and rage of the bewildered herd... That means they have to have instilled in them the beliefs and doctrines that will serve the interests of private power. Unless they can master that skill, they're not part of the specialized class. They have to be deeply indoctrinated in the
values and interests of private power and the state-corporate nexus that represents it. If they can get through that, then they can be part of the specialized class. The rest of the bewildered herd just have to be basically distracted. Turn their attention to something else.... ...In what is nowadays called a totalitarian state, then a military state, it's easy. You just hold a bludgeon over their heads, and if they get out of line you smash them over the head. But as society has become more free and democratic, you lose that capacity. Therefore you have to turn to the techniques of propaganda. The logic is clear. Propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is
to a totalitarian state....
Public Relations
...The corporate executive and the guy who cleans the floor all have the same interests. We can all work together and work for Americanism in harmony, liking each other. That was essentially the message. A huge amount of effort was put into presenting it. This is,
after all, the business community, so they control the media and have massive resources... Mobilizing community opinion in favor of vapid, empty concepts like Americanism. Who can be against that? Or, to bring it up to date, "Support our troops." Who can be against that? Or yellow ribbons. Who can be against that?... The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything.
They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don't want people to think about the issue. That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's
going to be against, and everybody's going to be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything, but its crucial value is that it diverts your attention.... {2}.
The worst example of misguiding the whole Pakistani Nation was when the USA invaded Iraq a whole lot of Defence Analysts like General Hamid Gul, General Aslam Baig, Shahid M Amin and lots of others invaded GEO, ARY, INDUS TV and did their best to prove that the resistance against USA in Iraq is being spearheaded by Saddam Hussain and they never mentioned once as to what Saddam used to do with the US help against his own Iraqis and then Iranis and then Kuwaitis.
Noted voice of dissent Ms. Arundhati Roy says"¦
When the United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And an ABC News poll said that 55 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein directly supported Al Qaida. None of this opinion is based on evidence (because there isn't any). All of it is based on insinuation, auto-suggestion, and outright lies circulated by the U.S. corporate media, otherwise known as the "Free Press," that hollow pillar on which contemporary American democracy rests. Public support in the U.S. for the war against Iraq was founded on a multi-tiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified by the
corporate media.
Never mind that forty years ago, the CIA, under President John F. Kennedy, orchestrated a regime change in Baghdad. In 1963, after a successful coup, the Ba'ath party came to power in Iraq. Using lists provided by the CIA, the new Ba'ath regime systematically eliminated hundreds of doctors, teachers, lawyers, and political figures known to be leftists. An entire intellectual community was slaughtered. (The same technique was used to massacre hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia and East Timor.) The young Saddam Hussein was said to have had
a hand in supervising the bloodbath. In 1979, after factional infighting within the Ba'ath Party, Saddam Hussein became the President of Iraq. In April 1980, while he was massacring Shias, the U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi declared, "We see no fundamental incompatibility of interests between the United States and Iraq." Washington and London
overtly and covertly supported Saddam Hussein. They financed him, equipped him, armed him, and provided him with dual-use materials to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. They supported his worst excesses financially, materially, and morally. They supported the eight-year war against Iran and the 1988 gassing of Kurdish people in Halabja, crimes which 14 years
later were re-heated and served up as reasons to justify invading Iraq. After the first Gulf War, the "Allies" fomented an uprising of Shias in Basra and then looked away while Saddam Hussein crushed the revolt and slaughtered thousands in an act of vengeful reprisal. It was Herman Goering, that old Nazi, who said, "People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders."¦ All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack
of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." He's right. It's dead easy. That's what the Bush regime banks on. The distinction between election campaigns and war, between democracy and oligarchy, seems to be closing fast.
Democracy has become Empire's euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism.
In countries of the first world, too, the machinery of democracy has been effectively subverted. Politicians, media barons, judges, powerful corporate lobbies, and government officials are imbricated in an elaborate underhand configuration that completely undermines the lateral arrangement of checks and balances between the constitution, courts of law, parliament, the
administration and, perhaps most important of all, the independent media that form the structural basis of a parliamentary democracy. Increasingly, the imbrication is neither subtle nor elaborate. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, has a controlling interest in major Italian newspapers, magazines, television channels, and publishing houses.
The Financial Times reported that he controls about 90 percent of Italy's TV viewership. Recently, during a trial on bribery charges, while insisting he was the only person who could save Italy from the left, he said, "How much longer do I have to keep living this life of sacrifices?" That bodes ill for the remaining 10 percent of Italy's TV viewership. What price Free
Speech? Free Speech for whom? In the United States, the arrangement is more complex. Clear Channel Worldwide Incorporated is the largest radio station owner in the country. It runs more than 1,200 channels, which together account for 9 percent of the market. Its CEO contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush's election campaign. When hundreds of thousands of American citizens took to the streets to protest against the war on Iraq, Clear Channel
organized pro-war patriotic "Rallies for America" across the country. It used its radio stations to
advertise the events and then sent correspondents to cover them as though they were breaking news. The era of manufacturing consent has given way to the era of manufacturing news. Soon media newsrooms will drop the pretense, and start hiring theatre directors instead
of journalists.
As America's show business gets more and more violent and war-like, and America's wars get more and more like show business, some interesting cross-overs are taking place. The designer who built the 250,000 dollar set in Qatar from which General Tommy Franks stage-managed news coverage of Operation Shock and Awe also built sets for Disney, MGM, and "Good Morning
America." It is a cruel irony that the U.S., which has the most ardent, vociferous defenders of the idea of Free Speech, and (until recently) the most elaborate legislation to protect it, has so circumscribed the space in which that freedom can be expressed. In a strange, convoluted way, the sound and fury that accompanies the legal and conceptual defense of Free Speech in America serves to mask the process of the rapid erosion of the possibilities of actually
exercising that freedom. The news and entertainment industry in the U.S. is for the most part controlled by a few major corporations - AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Corporation. Each of these corporations owns and controls TV stations, film studios, record companies, and publishing ventures. Effectively, the exits are sealed. America's media empire is controlled by a tiny coterie of people. Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Michael Powell,
the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, has proposed even further deregulation of the
communication industry, which will lead to even greater consolidation. So here it is - the World's
Greatest Democracy, led by a man who was not legally elected Another urgent challenge is to expose the corporate media for the boardroom bulletin that it really is. {3}
HOW USA BACKED GENERAL ZIAUL HAQ CONTROLLED THE MEDIA:
May 13, 1978, was the blackest day in the history of journalism in the subcontinent, when newsmen were ordered to be flogged by summary military courts of General Ziaul Haq. Those ordered to be whipped were:
Masudullah Khan (Pakistan Times), Iqbal Ahmed Jafri (Sun), Nisar Zaidi (Nawa-e-Waqt) Khawar Naseem Hashmi (Musawat, Lahore), Mohammad Ilyas (Pakistan Times, Rawalpindi), Abdul Hameed Chapra (Jang, Karachi), Fateh Mohammad (Dawn, Karachi), Syed Mohammad Sofi
(Musawat, Karachi), Rana Nayyar Iqbal (Musawat, Lahore), and Mohammad Ashraf Ali (Sadaqat, Karachi).
General Ziaul Haq's pet dog i.e. General Mujibur Rehamn {Information Secretary and Islamic Paul Josef Goebbles of General Zia} in his order:
"The Press advice system is a blessing in disguise for the newspapers, because it helps save the newsmen from the mischief of Press Laws and Martial Law Regulations"¦. The system itself is an institution, which helps the Press in its day-to-day work" {4}
HOW USA BACKED GENERAL MUSHARRAF IS CONTROLLING THE
MEDIA:
Through amendment in Section 30 of the Pemra Ordinance, the bill seeks to give discretionary powers to the authority to vary licence conditions and suspend or revoke the licence. It calls for abolition of a three-member committee that is to be constituted, under the present law, by the federal government under the chairmanship of a retired judge of the high court or the Supreme Court. The committee is empowered to render its opinion as to whether or not a licensee has contravened any of the provisions of the Pemra Ordinance. The committee's other members include one representative each from the licensee and the authority. The bill seeks deletion of the committee-related provision.
The bill has further expanded Section 29 through addition of Section 29(A) which has enhanced the recovery powers of Pemra. The bill seeks recovery of arrears and penalties from licensees as arrears of land revenue. The amendment bill has also enhanced the amount of fine which may be imposed by the authority from Rs1-2 million. Suggesting addition of clause (b)
to Section 27 of the ordinance, the bill presumes the possibility of what it says abuse of media power, which it does not define. The clause authorises the authority to prohibit any broadcaster from engaging in any practice or act which amounts to abuse of media power by way of harming the legitimate interests of another licensee or wilfully causing damage to any other persons. In a move to oust the jurisdiction of the superior courts, the amendment bill has sought to restrict the licensee's right to pre-empt a negative order from the authority by adding to the same clause a provision that allows him/her to go to high court only (reducing forums of appeal) within thirty days of an order of the authority and not a show cause or other notices. The present laws leave a room for pre-empting a negative order and seeking a stay against it by the high court. But the amendment seeks to restrict the licensee from moving the high court before an order of the authority. It is also not explained if the order of the authority will not be
implemented within 30 days of its passage to allow the licensee to move the court and stay its enforcement lest it is enforced first and then challenged in the court. According to the proposed amendments, the authorized Pemra officials are being empowered to inspect the premises of the radio/TV stations.
Regarding enforcement powers, the amendments tabled in the National Assembly seek to require the federal, provincial and district governments to assist the authority in discharge of its functions. This, according to Matiullah Jan of the Internews, means the police have been empowered to take action on a report from an authorized Pemra official. Similarly, the bill
also allows the Pemra officials along with the police to get a search warrant from the court (The court hasn't been defined) and raid any premises which is suspected of housing an illegal broadcasting station.
A crucial change being proposed in Section 21 of the ordinance is the proposed deletion of its clause (3) wherein the authority is under obligation to expedite the licensing and operation of private radio and TV stations with the objective of facilitating freedom of expression on the airwaves. The present law also requires the authority to ensure that no unreasonable delay occurs in processing the applications on the grounds that the federal or provincial governments
require an unspecified time to complete their procedures. This whole clause (3) is being proposed to be deleted in the amendment bill.
According to the report, the public interest argument is also being used to enhance the authority's powers to provide exemptions from any provisions of the ordinance to anyone.
Section 32 of the present law requires the authority that such exemptions shall be made in conformity with the principles of equality and equity as enshrined in the Constitution. But the amendment bill seeks to do away with this restriction which is rooted in the Constitution. The bill also suggests that the authority should be empowered to appoint members of
the Council of Complaints as against the federal government's power at present. However, it states that the federal government should approve such appointment. The bill also seeks powers for the council to summon a licensee to explain his position on a complaint. The bill proposes amendment in Section 6 of the ordinance wherein it seeks payment of authority-specified fee and expenses to the ex-officio members of the authority as well just like other
members. They were not entitled to such payments earlier. The ex-officio members are secretary ministry of information, secretary Interior Division and chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. {5}
CONTROL IN TIMES OF FREEDOM:
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) was set up to regulate the airwaves and issue private broadcast licences for radio and television.
In the intervening two years, close to 100 FM radio and 25 satellite TV licences have been issued, transforming the country's media scene drastically. While all this looks good as the new media outlets, especially television, begin to provide news and information to a starved Pakistani public, it is increasingly becoming apparent that the authorities are not letting the potential of these independent sources of information to develop fully. The government still issues threats against the media, and keeps pressurising them to not become 'too independent'. Journalists are harassed and media outlets, especially the new radio licencees, are actively discouraged from broadcasting 'national' news. The refusal of the authorities to put an end to the era of influencing news flow is a worrying sign that does not seem to be abating even as the private
media presence grows. There are signs that even as unprecedented media freedoms come into effect in Pakistan, a counter media establishment is taking shape that is nullifying the gains. Even though dozens of private TV channels and radio stations have been licensed to operate in the last two years, their outreach to viewership and listenership is severely restricted through laws and mechanisms that hinder the development of an enabling environment.
For instance, while state-owned TV and radio have universal audience outreach (150 million people!), the private broadcasters don't. This is because private TV channels are satellite (expensively beamed in from abroad), not terrestrial (cheap national transmission). The reason is clear: the government does not want to share its massive captive audience with competitors. This intentional bias is killing the spirit of media freedoms. One major reason why civil society in Pakistan is weak is because the state-owned media with its massive outreach does not promote it and private media which does is limited in impact because of restricted access. Making matters worse is the recent toughening up of media laws dealing with speech that have drastically raised the punishment for defamation, encouraging self-censorship. A separate
new law makes criticism of the judiciary even more difficult. Then the Ministry of Information has been assuming a greater role in discouraging the private media from reporting on issues such as politics, terrorism, current affairs, etc. The biggest challenge in the media sector in Pakistan remains in the absence of universal broadcast access to private media, which
is currently severely restricted. There is no terrestrial TV in the private sector. Either the
satellite TV stations should be awarded the right of terrestrial broadcasts or the state-owned PTV and PBC need to be brought under the ambit of PEMRA, which hey currently are not. A level playing field for the edia players in Pakistan does not currently exist.
urrently the private TV channels have to operate as offshore channels, beaming in through satellite and re available through an intervening distribution system thereby severely restricting access. The private channels cannot be beamed terrestrially from within Pakistan, thereby being victims of double jeopardy as they have to incur heavy operational expenses. By not letting all Pakistani citizens have access to local private television media as freely as they can access PTV, the government is guilty of denying them the complete right to freedom of information promised them under Article 19 of the constitution. A rigorous and diverse mass media is an essential component of a democratic society. If Pakistan is to have a more participatory, representative and accountable democracy, the country's nascent independent electronic media sector must be aggressively supported. In a country of 150 million people, where the functional literacy rate is a dismal 30 per cent, the power of independent television and radio to educate and inform cannot be overstated. Too much governance has been Pakistan's perennial problem. But controlling the airwaves in the information age is taking things too far by even local standards. This last link to freedom should be unpoliced. {5} NOTES:Manufacturing Dissent: Noam Chomsky on Journalism. {1} http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9501-journalism.htmlMedia Control by Noam Chomsky Massachusetts Institute of Technology, March 17, 1991 Excerpted from the Alternative Press Review, Fall 1993 {2} http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/talks/9103-media-control.htmlhttp://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/mediacontrol.htmInstant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free) by Arundhati Roy Presented in New York City at The Riverside Church May 13, 2003 Published on Sunday, May 18, 2003 by CommonDreams.org Copyright 2003 by Arundhati Roy {3} http://www.cesr.org/http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0518-01.htmInstant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free), by Arundhati Roy {3} http://cesr.org/arundhatiroytranscriptTranscript of full speech by Arundhati Roy in San Francisco, California on August 16th, 2004. Copyright 2004 Arundhati Roy. For permission to reprint contact arnove@...THE PRESS IN CHAINS BY Late. Zamir Niazi {Published by Royal Book Company Karachi 1986} {4} Civil society fears curbs on media freedom By Our Staff Reporter February 20, 2005 {5}. http://www.internews.org/articles/2005/20050220_dawn_pakistan.htmIn Afghanistan, journalists find satire is no laughing matter [Mirwais Social, quoted toward the end of the article, is Internews Afghanistan's Production Unit Manager] {5} http://www.internews.org/articles/2004/20041201_yahoo_afghan.htmConference argues journalists have role to play in conflicts Reporters urged to initiate dialogue, mediation Speakers focus on how to define conflict, how parties can best communicate By Nada Bakri Special to The Daily Star Thursday, November 25, 2004 {5}. http://www.internews.org/articles/2004/20041125_dailystar_alam.htmControl in times of Freedom. {5}. http://www.internews.org/articles/2004/20041205_thenews_rehmat.htmARTILCES BY EQBAL AHMED. The Post-Colonial State From Potato Sack to Potato Mash: The Contemporary Crisis of the Third World [Arab Studies Quarterly, Summer 1980] Post-Colonial System of Power [Arab Studies Quarterly, Fall 1980] The Neo-Fascist State: Notes on the Pathology of Power in the Third World [Arab Studies Quarterly, Spring 1981] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=1Afghanistan In Afghanistan, Cease Fire Please [Dawn, 7 April 1991] In a Land Without Music [Dawn, 23 July 1993] As Afghanistan Goes [Dawn, 24 September 1995] What After Strategic Depth? [Dawn, 23 August 1998] Bloody Games [The New Yorker, 11 April 1988] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=6The War at Home War on Women [27 February 1994] Murder of a Metropolis [Dawn, 17 July 1994] Karachi's Alarming Message [Dawn, 28 May 1995] Beyond this Battle of Karachi [Dawn, 17 August 1995] When Government Violates the Law [Dawn, 27 August 1995] Writings on the Wall [Dawn, 17 September 1995] A Town Called Shantinagar [Dawn, 18 February 1997] Roots of Violence in Pakistan [Dawn, 25 January 1998] Feudal Culture and Violence [Dawn, 2 February 1998] The Conflict Within [Dawn, 15 February 1998] An Islamic Predicament [Dawn, 22 February 1998] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=7Islam and Politics Religion in Politics [Dawn, 31 January 1999] Profile of the Religious Right [Dawn, 7 March 1999] Book Review: Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence:War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World [The Nation, 9 August 1993] Islam and Politics [The Islamic Impact, eds. Y. Haddad, B. Haines and E. Findly, Syracuse University Press, 1984] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=8Hopes and Possibilities Questions of Rights [Dawn, 27 September 1992] The Maulana's Lieutenant [Dawn, 2 January 1996] Your Country's Balance Sheet [Dawn, 5 February 1995] Culture of Complaint [Dawn, 14 June 1994] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=9The Shape of Pakistan Pakistan Portents [The Nation, November 1, 1993 ] Pakistan's Endangered History [Dawn, 4 June 1995] The Betrayed Promise [Dawn, 18 June 1995] How A Continent Divided? [Dawn, 24 August 1997] Letter to a Pakistani Diplomat [New York Review of Books, 2 September 1971] Notes on South Asia in Crisis [Bulletin of Concern Asian Scholars, Winter 1972] Meanings in the Disaster [Dawn, 17 April 1994] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=2Militarism and the State Pakistan "“ Signposts to A Police State [Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1974] Pakistan: Military Intervention [Le Monde Diplomatique, October 1977] Pakistan in Crisis: an interview [Race and Class, XXII, No.2 1980] Pakistan's Praetorian Curse [Dawn, 23 December 1989] The Signals Soldiers Pick [Dawn, 12 November 1995] India's Obsession, Our Choice [Dawn, 17 May 1998] When Mountains Die [Dawn, 4 June 1998] Nuclear Gains and Losses [Dawn, 14 June 1998] Reason As Spectator [Dawn, 11 June 1998] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=3India Fever: Between Past and the Future [Dawn, 1 April 1994] Islam as Refuge from Failure [6 September 1998] Roots of the Religious Right [24 January 1999] Nurturing Democracy [Dawn, 13 September 1992] After The Indian Winter [New Socialist, March 1985] India's Uncertain Future [Dawn, 26 May 1991] We Meet Again [Dawn, 13 December 1992] BJP's Challenge to Pakistan [Dawn, 22 March 1998] A Conversation With Gujral [Dawn, 10 May 1998] Kashmir [Himal, November 1996] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=4Kashmir A Question of Values [Dawn, 20 September 1992] Law Against Justice [Dawn, 4 October 1992] Intellectuals Role in Society [Dawn, 10 December 1995] Jinnah, in a Class of His Own [Dawn, 11 June 1995] Kashmir - India's Nemesis [Dawn, 10 February 1990] Is War Imminent? [Dawn, 19 May 1991] http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal.asp?id=5Thoughts Of A Secular Sufi Noam Chomsky NOTE: This article is a review of: Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire Interviews with David Barsamian Introduction by Edward W. Said http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_on_view.asp?id=1Cambridge: South End Press, 2000 http://www.southendpress.org/books/ahmad.shtmlTHE TRUTH GEO, ARY AND INDUS TV NEVER TELL: Taliban in Texas: Big Oil hankers for old pals by Pepe Escobar May 18, 2004 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FE18Aa03.htmlPipelineistan revisited by Pepe Escobar Dec 25, 2003 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EL25Ag02.htmlWar Is Peace The world doesn't have to choose between the Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of the world"”literature, music, art"”lies between these two fundamentalist poles. Arundhati Roy Also Appeared in Outlook http://www.zmag.org/roywarpeace.htmInterview with Eqbal Ahmed {PART-1} India, Pakistan, Palestine, Bosnia, etc. by David Barsamian by courtesy & © 1993-2001 Zmag & Alternative Radio http://www.mediamonitors.net/interview5.htmlInterview with Eqbal Ahmed {PART-2} From Bandung to Mexico: The Decline of the Third World by David Barsamian by courtesy & © 1993-2001 Zmag & Alternative Radio http://www.mediamonitors.net/interview6.html
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