On the other hand, in Pakistan, member of a political party and candidate from Chakwal Mr. Ayaz Amir is regularly writing for a newspaper. Mr. Najam Sethi, Chairman PCB can be found as an analyst in TV shows of a private channel, and runs a family newspaper, the Friday Times, too. Syed Ali Raza Abidi was an MQM activist but is still writing articles for different newspapers, and the list goes on; but it seems neither the media groups have any ethical norms nor the journalists.
Pakistan has many excellent and professional journalists who are able to produce high quality journalism under very difficult conditions. But the standard of journalism varies widely from the best trained, educated and most professional journalist to the uneducated, untrained and unprofessional. As most of the media outlets became hubs of propagation and corruption, some of the most popular and professional journalists/anchors lost their credibility after the different corruption scandals of the media.
DAWN News started a weekly talk show by the name of “Apna Gareban- Accountability of Media”. Mr. Matiullah was the anchor. This show tried to look at the affairs of the journalists, their corruptions, their ethics and their professionalism. But the talk show was stopped just after two episodes because the Media giants did not let it go live. Hamid Mir got angry over the question about the accountability of journalists asked by the anchor of this program, and started blaming the anchor and the TV channel.
In June 2012, another media scandal surfaced on the social media and the mainstream media, when a planted talk show was organized for real estate investor Malik Riaz who wanted to share some evidence against the businessman Arsalan Iftikhar. Arsalan Iftikhar is the son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. The plot behind the show was to prove that Arsalan Iftikhar was paid for several years to influence over the Supreme Court cases and National Accountability Bureau investigations.
When behind-the-scene footage of this show was posted on YouTube, it showed that the show was planted and most of the questions asked by the anchors Mubashar Luqman and Meher Bukhari were suggested by Malik Riaz. This opened another discussion in the media circles. Dunya TV registered a case against the unidentified person for publicizing the off-air contents of that show; on the other hand, PEMRA and the Supreme Court also launched full investigations against Dunya TV.
Currently, a series of Mubashar Luqman show (Khara Sach) is being aired on ARY News. In these shows, Mubashar Luqman accused GEO TV of taking foreign grants to serve the interests of those countries. Allegations are serious as Mubashar Luqman has accused the GEO TV of working against the ideology of Pakistan and Islam. In the last month, a total 5533 complaints were launched on the PEMRA website against different channels, out of which 5285 were against the GEO network.
Now you would be thinking that PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulating Authority) will take action against GEO Network after such a huge number of complaints.
If you are thinking that, then you are wrong. PEMRA has its own problems, just like the other organizations in Pakistan.
