Role of independent and responsible media is become more important in current crisis: CPNE.

KARACHI -- The Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE) has said the role of independent and responsible media has become more important in the context of public awareness during current crisis and there is an urgent need for all stakeholders including federal and provincial governments to reflect the situation of coronavirus, financial and other difficulties faced by the people so that they can tackle the current problems. These views were expressed by CPNE President Arif Nizami at a meeting of Standing Committee, which was attended by Standing Committee Members from across the country through video link. In the meeting, the Standing Committee Members have passed a resolution stating that the Federal Government, by abolishing government's advertisements quota of local and regional newspapers and periodicals across the country, has brought these newspapers and periodicals to the brink of closure which will create more unemployment and poverty.

The regional and local newspapers and periodicals are not only the backbone of responsible and strong media, but they are also providing journalism- related human resource training and manpower to main stream media outlets and other institutions. In addition, the local media also provides basic platform to highlight local problems and issues related to economy and leadership. The government's policy to ignore regional and local media outlets can extremely damage all the country's institutions. The CPNE said the government's advertisements are very important for all newspapers and periodicals and its distribution to only few selected newspapers will be a very unfair and undemocratic act, therefore, the CPNE has urged that the government must initiate probe of the irregularities, corruption and looting of public exchequers in the issuance of government advertisements in the past and in this regard, a policy should be formulated on an emergency basis to address it in the future. The CPNE further claimed that the government and provinces should also realize the fact that mainstream media are covering the four or five big cities in the country, whereas regional and local newspapers and periodicals - spread all over Pakistan including districts, cities, regions - have a profound effect on entire society.

CPNE demands that 25 per cent quota of regional and local newspapers and periodicals in government advertisements should be restored and fully implemented. This step will be of great help to the local...