KARACHI:The Festival of Arts and Ideas, organized by Sindh Madressatul Islam University (SMIU) at its premises, entered its fourth day on Thursday in which various sessions were held. At a session Media and the state: Is honeymoon over?, speakers blamed the electronic media for negative reporting because of racing for ratings that eventually painted negative image of the country elsewhere. Speakers, however, said despite being influenced by the highly divisive society of the country, Pakistani media still managed to play its positive role in trying disseminating untwisted information to people.
They said a country of 200 million people was divided on various fronts, as there were people who supported fundamentalism and others sided with liberal and progressive ideas, yet, media outlets in general were ensuring that truthful information reached to people. They, however, blamed the race for ratings often forced the electronic media to run twisted and incorrect news items and twisted information on primetime talk shows.
“Fundamentalism has gripped the country on the one hand and on the other there are liberal forces. Similarly, our society is divided on ideological grounds as well. In such a situation, media is still making it possible to inform people honestly,” said eminent journalist Ghazi Salahuddin. He said such a role of the media was a part of the concerted effort to get the people glued to democratic process. Ghazi Salahuddin further said media was mirror to revolutionary changes in the world. He advised the students to broaden their vision and ability to conform with the changing scenario of the media business.
Media personality Wusatullah Khan said media was not just limited to a newspaper or a news channel, but books, poetry, fiction, cinema and drama also fall in its vast definition. He said freedom of expression was attained through great struggles in the world. The freedom of expression was begotten a century ago in the West, which even increased after the World War-II. Wusatullah Khan spoke over the current financial crisis as being claimed by the media outlets. He said the media organisations got merely a quarter of its advertisements from the government while the rest of 75 per cent came from the private sector.
Besides, he added, the media owners also had other businesses to earn from; in such a situation, he wondered, the financial problems being claimed by the media organisations was beyond comprehension and absurd. He said the character of media was also changing because it had to entertain the dictation of the clients who paid for advertisements. Journalist Mazhar Abbas said most talk shows on news channels were negative in nature and ratings were the key culprit to blame for it.
He said most wrong information was being relayed on electronic media because of continuous pressure of deadlines and wild goose race for ratings; and they could not rectified later on. “Our reporting is highly irresponsible and this is leading the society to negative path.” He said the electronic media’s reckless reporting painted the negative image of Karachi elsewhere in the country and abroad; that even stopped foreigners in visiting the city on bizarre misconceptions.
Owais Zaidi of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority said people were gradually getting aware about what was happening in the country and elsewhere in the world. He said the situation relating to media was not worse and it would take time for the business to get improved. Later, SMIU’s Vice Chancellor Dr. Muhammad Ali Shaikh presented shields to the guest speakers. Meanwhile, quiz and poetry competitions among the students were held. Students presented the poetry of Sufi poet Sachal Sarmast. Separately, Madiha Rehman reviewed the works of novelist Kamila Shamsie in ‘Life of an Author’ session.