This document is downloaded from DR-NTU, Nanyang Technological University Library, Singapore.

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1 This document is downloaded from DR-NTU, Nanyang Technological University Library, Singapore. Title Audience access and participation in media planning and development in Pakistan Author(s) Sajid, Zakariyya Citation Sajid, Z. (1992). Audience access and participation in media planning and development in Pakistan. In AMIC Workshop on Media Education in South Asia : New Delhi, Aug 4-8, Singapore: Asian Mass Communication Research & Information Centre. Date 1992 URL Rights

2 Audience Access And Participation In Media Planning And Development In Pakistan By Zakariyya Sajid Paper No.16

3 Workshop on Media Education in South Asia New Delhi, August 4-8, AUDIENCE ACCESS AND PARTICIPATION IN MEDIA PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN Zakariyya Sajid, Director, Press Institute of Pakistan, Karachi. Media planning in Pakistan is undertaken both in the public and the private sectors. Traditionally the Press has been a private enterprise and the electronic media, with the exception of cinema, in the public sector. Whatever progress the Pakistani Press has achieved, it is through its own efforts based on timely response to market forces. The government has from time to time provided inputs such as allocation of foreign exchange for import of printing machinery and equipment and newsprint etc., though government largess in many cases has been attributed to political favour. Before we try to asses audience access and participation in media policy, a brief introduction to the media development is in order The Press For a population of 120 million with a literacy rate of 35 percent (45% male + 21% female). Pakistan publishes over 2500 newspapers and periodical publications; number of dailies is 271.

4 (2) The total circulation of the entire daily Press is 1.5 million.. Of this the Urdu newspapers claim more than 80 percent. The English dailies circulation is estimated at 2.12 lacs. The Sindhi dailies representing the only important regional language press, claim a circulation of about 60 thousand copies. It can, therefore, be seen that Pakistan is far behind many other developing countries in terms of development of Press. Major reasons far this backwardness are the country's low literacy end the dearth of printing production material. Pakistan still imports news print, photographic equipment, printing machinery and many other kinds of related materials required for newspaper industry. As will be seen later this condition puts the Press in a very weak position in relation to the government which controls the import of these materials and can use it as a lever to influence the newspaper content and policy. Effective Press Despite the proliferation of newspapers, especially since May 1988 when the nation's black Press Law,the Press and Publications Ordinance was replaced by a more liberal law, there has been little change in the scenario of effective press in Pakistan. The supremacy of the Jang Group of Publications remains unchallenged. Their Urdu daily Jang simultaneously published from Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Quetta, is the country's largest Urdu daily, claiming a circulation of about 7 lacs (Jang London a

5 (3) sister publication has a circulation of 30,000 copies daily). Jang Group's Urdu weekly Akhbar-e-Jehan with a circulation of over three lacs, is Pakistan's largest circulated weekly. Mag their English weekly also has the largest circulation among English weeklies. With the publishing of their English daily TheVNews International from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad since Feb* 91, the jang Group has created history- This new English daily produced with latest computer technology, can be compared favourably with the daily Press anywhere in Asia. Their eveninger Daily News, though not claiming a very large circulation, is considered an important publication of the Jang Group. After the Jang Group comes the Nawa-i-Wagt-Nation Group of publications. Nawa-i-Waqt, the oldest member of the Group, started its publication in 1940 and is remembered as a crusader of the Pakistan Movement. Its political orientation has given it a very important position countrywide. It is also simultaneously published from Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan and Karachi. It claims a circulation of about 3 lacs. Their English daily The Nation, started in 1985, is an important publication. The Group also publishes Urdu weekly Family Magazine and monthly Phool (children's magazine).

6 (4) National Press Trust The above two Groups of publications, the Jang and the Nawai-Waqt, are Pakistan's competitive press syndicates; they almost monopolize the print media in Pakistan. They had daily Mashriq as their rival in the sixtees and seventees, but how Mashriq, a member of the government controlled National Press Trust is a doomed publication. Though published from all the four provincial capitals, it has place in the media world only in Peshawar and Quetta. As the present government is active in privatisation, it is expected that Mashriq may be sold to its employees or some other group. In any case it is questionable whether the newspaper can. regain its position of influence and pose a challenge to the Jang and Nawa-i-Waqt Groups. The National Press Trust created in 1964 during the Ayub era, also had the English dailies Morning News, Pakistan Times and the Urdu daily Imroz in its fold. Both Morning News and Imroz have been wound up. The Pakistan Times, still considered a viable enterprise, may be the National Press Trust's last daily to be retained in its possession. The Dawn Group of Publication comprising English daily Dawn, eveninger Star, Dawn (Gujrati), Hurriyat (Urdu) and the English monthly Herald is Pakistan's third largest Group of Publications. Dawn, started in Delhi at the behest of Quid-e-Azam

7 (5) Muhammad Ali Jinnah served as the Pakistan Movement's spokesman up to 1947 and has been published since then from Karachi. It is now owned by Haroon family. Though its Urdu daily Hurriyat has ceased publication, the Group is known as an important opinion maker in Pakistan. In fact, despite the challenge from Jang Group's The News and the Nawa-i-Wagt Group's The Nation, Dawn is accepted as Pakistan's largest and most influential English daily. v In the Sindhi press the Ibrat Group of Publications with Daily Ibrat Hyderabad and other periodical publications, is the largest regional publishing enterprise. Recently a few new Sindhi dailies (among them Awami Awaz, Jago, Karachi, and Kawish, Hyderabad) have also come in the field and seem to be competing favourably. Though there is no real improvement in the literacy situation in Pakistan, the press appears to have witnessed expansion in recent years. In addition to the chain dailies mentioned earlier English dailies The Muslim (Islamabad), Frontier Post (Peshawar and Lahore), Pakistan Observer (Islamabad) are in tough competition with one another. In Urdu journalism also a new daily Pakistan, started about a year ago, has now made some dent in the circulation of the two major Urdu dailies of Lahore, Jang and Nawa-i-Wagt. As the daily Press leaves very little for coverage by weeklies and monthlies, growth of periodical press in Pakistan has

8 (6) been rather slow and insignificant. Only two or three periodicals in English (Herald, Newsliae, Friday Times) and Urdu (Takbir, Zindagi, Akhbar-e-Khawateen) can be cited as examples. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: The ownership of the electronic media has been vested in the Federal government since the pre-independence days, hence it was unthinkable to allow private parties to start their own radio stations. In 1964 television made its debut in Pakistan again under the Federal government. Radio Pakistan was converted from a government department to an autonous corporation in 1972 and television into Pakistan Television Corporation. Presumably the two corporations were patterned after the BBC but in fact they have functioned strictly as government departments. There is no audience or public participation in their administration. As far as the programme content of these two organisations is concerned there have been some efforts at associating the audience in the preparation and production of programmes. PTV's nr^';sl <jr n gained lot of popularity because of audience participation amounting to bitter criticism of government departments. Eventually the programme had to be discontinued because of official pressure. In addition audience participation has been in many of the stage shows, guiz programmes etc. In any case there is no audience participation in the plan-

9 (7) ning of radio and television projects. Only recently other channel CNN/NTM in collaboration with STN has started its telecasting which allows 6 hours of programmes produced or acguired through the private sector. So far, there is no such efforts in the case of radio, though newspaper reports suggest that the government plans to initiate radio broadcasting in private sector also. FILM PRODUCTION * Since pre-independence days, film production and exhibition has been in private hands. In view of foreign competition, the government allowed production facilities through the Film Development Corporation. Cinema houses all over the country are private property but they have to be licensed and any film to be screened there must have been cleared by the government appointed film censor board. The expansion and development of television has tear a key factor in the downfall of film industry in Pakistan. Despite full protection from foreign competition, the industry is in bad health. There have been efforts at joint ventures with foreign organisations but the industry continues to be in private sector of Pakistan. The privatisation campaign is in full swing in Pakistan. The evidence in the field of communication is the introduction of Instaphone private telephone system and transformation of post

10 (8) office and telephone departments into Pakistan Postal Corporation and Pakistan Tele-Communication Corporation. The production of radio and television sets and equipment is mostly in the private sector with multinationals monopolising the scene. Some of the more advanced technical equipment continues to be imported from abroad. V CREDIBILITY GAP: As elsewhere in the third world, in Pakistan also, the electronic media are under the exclusive control of the government. Whichever party is in power, it dictates what is to be projected on radio and television. In such a situation it is not unusual to witness a broadcaster/telecast eulogising a political leader one evening and condemning him the other day when he is out of power. Since the electronic media enjoy the protection of the state, no amount of protest can result in the projection of opposition viewpoint over radio and television. It is therefore customary that the opposition parties resort to cultivating BBC and other foreign media organisations for telling the world their side of the story. The popularity of foreign media, television, radio, newspapers and magazines alike, is thus ensured by this phenomenon. This situation has on the one hand robbed the national

11 (9) electronic media of audience credibility and added, on the other hand, to the importance of print media as source of credible news. If the electronic media were to be allowed a little freedom to cover the opposition parties as well, it will adversely affect the circulation of newspapers. A case in point was the shortlived experiment, when Benazir Bhutto's government opened radio and television to the coverage of opposition's activities as well. Sale of newspapers in the city of Hyderabad fell by hundreds because the readers argued that there was* not much of difference between the radio, T.V. news and the newspaper's coverage so why spend four rupees for the purchase of daily newspaper. PARTY NEWSPAPERS As far as the entrepreneurship of newspapers in concerned, Pakistan did experiment with the establishment of dailies by various political parties. During the fiftees and sixtees the Muslim League, Jamat-e-Islami and other political parties, had their own dailies, but this experiment proved to be failure. Most newspaper readers expect a newspaper, first of all, to be a worthy newspaper rather than a propaganda sheet and the party papers failed in this test. At present the Peoples Party and the Jamat-e-Islami, do have their own party newspapers but they are hardly popular with their own members. An interesting fact in this regard, is the attitude

12 (10) of the Muhajir Quami Movement which decided not to found its own daily but to engineer the support and acquisition of popular dailies' support to project its viewpoint and policies. POLITICAL ACTIVISTS At present the Press in Pakistan is face to face with the threatening influence of political activist groups, be they of students, labour or political orientation. Because of their street power, they make the newspapers succumb to their demands for publication of their press releases and to black out any coverage of their adversaries. The more power a group wields, the better its coverage in the Press. It is now a common experience to find half a dozen double column statements of a given political leader on the first page of any popular daily. The seizure of Press by various activist groups, specially in Karachi, has resulted in the loss of its credibility to the extent that now when the army action in Sindh claims to have exposed the terrorists activities and torcher cells of the MQM, there is wide-spread scepticism about the veracity of such claims in the Press. An average reader believes that the Press was earlier held hostage by the MQM and now by the army; so there is no room for credibility in either case. Even before the MQM era in Karachi, the student and other activist groups, particularly the student wings of political parties, were involved in violent demonstrations against the

13 (11) newspapers, protesting against what the newspaper had published against them or demanding the publication of their version of an event. A look at a typical Urdu daily yields the impression that most of its news content comprises claims and counter claims accusations and protestations of various student and youth groups belonging to contemporary political orientations. An important development of the recent times is the resurgence of militant religious groups of one orientation or the other. They create explosive situations on the eve of Muharram, Eid-e-Miladun Nabi and other religious occasions. The newspapers are hard pressed to carry their conflicting and vituperative press releases, thus adding fuel to the fire and creating a situation which later results in further abridging of their own freedom. Influence of Women Groups Though Pakistan has a legacy of women participation in its struggle for independence, the participation of women in national affairs was rather limited in early years. Only the All Pakistan Women's Association (APWA) which represented the wives of politicians & civil servants in particular, showed some activity in socio-cultural fields and sought media support for its programmes. Occasionally it also espoused the protection of rights

14 (12) of women and children. The reforms in family laws and other similar measures undertaken during the Ayub era have been instrumental in improving the lot of Pakistani women. Both the print and electronic media, on the whole, supported these measures. The restoration of parliamentary rule with the advent of Bhutto era was marked by increasing participation of women in national affairs. However, some of the enactments especially Hadocd Ordinance, promulgated by the Zia-ul-Haq regime, have been vehemently opposed by women's groups such as the Women's Action Forum (WAF). Their statements criticising the new Shariat laws as violative of human rights as well as the dictates of Islam, have been carried by the print media, both with and without editorial approval. Many new publications supporting the cause of women have emerged on the horizon and are busy propagating their view point among the citizenry. There is also increased coverage of women's activities and issues in the media.

15 NEWSPAPERS & PERIODICALS BY LANGUAGE Language Pakistan Punjab Sindh N.W.F.P. Balochlstan Total Arabic Brahui 1 1 Balochi Bi/tri-Unguai English Gujratl 3 3 Persian Punjabi Push to Saraiki Sindhi Urdu Others n Source: Provincial Informations/Public Relations Departments 62 58

16 NEWSPAPERS & PERIODICALS BY PROVINCE AVERAGE CIRCULATION : NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES L A N G U A G E Source : Audit Bureau of Circulation, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

17 POLITICAL NEWS ANALYSIS INTERNATIONAL NEWS OF DAWN, JANG, THE NATION, NAWA-I-WAQT. (October 1-15,1991)

18 : : : ; : ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library PRINT MEDIA POLITICAL NEWS ANALYSIS OF DAWN, JANG. THE NATION. NAWA-I-WAQT. (October 1-51,1991) NEWSPAPER INTERNATIONAL DOMESTIC f " DAWN JANG CCM : : : : : x : >fe$:-^m5??:»:'sl: NATION : :: '. : :.':' % : ::, "" ^ &W:i«:> CCM. +:+>!tt&<>+&.+ % 17987* 61 I j 92! 9087 j 61 3 NAWA-I-WAQT 2935 i , i TOTAL J 2204a

19 PRINT MEDIA: Content Analysis SLANT: Attitude to Current Government IN DAWN, JANG, THE NATION, NAWA-I-WAQT. (October 1-15,1991) NEWSPAPER I FRONT & BACK PAGE (No. of Items) PRO ANTI NEUTRAL DAWN t35 JANG NATION NAWA-I-WAQT EDITORIAL NEWSPAPER PRO (No. of Items ANTI ) NEUTRAL DAWN 3 i JANG j 5 NATION NAWA-I-WAQT \ j ! I I CARTOON a 1 NEWSPAPER PRO (No. of Items) ANTI NEUTRAL x.,,,,..., DAWN 3! 5 4 JANG NATION NAWA-I-WAQT j 2 i 10 0

20 ' _ :. :. ' ;. : :, ; : ' - : : ' : : - :. ; : : ;.. ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library PRINT MEDIA CONTENT ANALYSIS OF DAWN, JANG. THE NATION, NAWA-I-WAQT. (October ) NEWSPAPER NEWS CCM % EDITOI 3IALS /FEAT URES CCM % ADVERTI SEMEN7 CCM % PAGES (VOLUME ITE\' ':'.. :. ' ' -' " ':'; ' ' :' ' '.' -:'y..' } ' 'DAWN j JANG i NATION NAWA-I-WAQT ! j I i j 180 I j !

21 POLITICAL NEWS ANALYSIS DOMESTIC NEWS OF DAWN, JANG, THE NATION, NAWA-I-WAQT. (October )