Ethical Journalism at stake in Pakistan
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A video clip has gone viral the past few days, where a girl is seen reporting the Pro-Palestine Protests. The issue raised by many viewers is the way she delivered her sentiments. The discrete selection of words, obscene shots and the diversion from the actual issue at hand has been the concern of many people. Surprisingly, buying ‘gajras’, the interaction between people of different genders, wearing jeans was more important than the protest itself. Knowing our society, it is quite easy to use religion for personal justification, molding the matter in your favor and gaining clout, when no other contradiction can be found.
Some believe that the whole report was scripted and she was only assigned to do so as per her job requirement and it is the higher authorities who are responsible for such acts. Others, however, call it a publicity stunt just for the sake of viewership considering it’s not even an official news channel rather a YouTube channel.
What is more astonishing is that there are people still praising her for exposing the “actuality” of these protests. Contrary to them, the reporter herself is objectified by many in defense. Some feminists also contributed taking these remarks personally. In conclusion, it was clearly evident that such a serious matter could be so easily portrayed into a scandalous event.
This is not something new to Pakistanis as we have seen numerous cases of unethical and preposterous reporting violating all social and journalistic ethics. For instance, when a reporter of a renowned News channel reported from inside the grave of Abdul Sattar Edhi, or when the rape victims are being reported; the way they are interviewed on hospital beds, with no censorship regarding their names, residence, neighborhood, and even pictures in some cases, or when innocent kids are interviewed regarding the murders of their close family members, or when it's reporting a plane crash, their first priority is to reach at the destination first and reporting the incident without even confirming the causalities, Or when the local newspaper use sexist comments in their headlines, or when sensual headlines and click baits are used for clout. There is no end to such examples, then again it is expected from the media of a society where people easily judge one’s character on the basis of one’s dressing, where everybody is curious about one’s personal life rather than the social one, where one can comment anything about anyone and nobody will be held accountable.
The journalism ethics which were once considered as a ruling authority have now been sold in the name of money. The matter has gone to the extreme end of fake news reporting, accusing people of being anti-nationalist, blasphemers, and traitors. Despite the formation of six section code by the Pakistan Coalition for Ethical Journalism in 2015, there has been a lack of scrutiny on part of the government. PEMRA should devise strict policies against such reporting, punishing the ones responsible for such acts, they should direct these news channels towards objective reporting, free of agenda-setting and propaganda. There is definitely a need for strict pre-requisites for license issuance by PEMRA. Social Media should also be under strict regulatory measures of government as many of the fake news and hatred remarks are spread by social media applications, as in the recent case of a Christian girl, rumored to be gang-raped and killed upon not reciting kalima, resulting in social media campaigns, it turned out to be fake news by a Hindu Pakistani aiming to spread hatred among the two sects. If this is not controlled now, no one knows how horrific the future of Pakistani journalism will be.
http://dailytimeskp.com/news.php?id=37470