How can Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan criticise media reporting when the government does not pay any attention towards the education and training of journalists, especially in south Punjab, Journalist Hameedul Hassan of the Journalists’ Rights Association (JRA) told media persons at a press conference on Tuesday.
The press conference was held to highlight the problems faced by journalists. The JRA led a protest demonstration against the government and the ministry of higher education in front of the Multan press club two days ago.
Multan Press Club President Rana Pervaiz Hameed said that almost 92 per cent of the journalists in the district did not have professional qualification.
He blamed the government’s lack of interest in introducing journalism as a course at the intermediate level and in public colleges. Journalism could only be studied as a private course at the graduate level, he said.
Almost 800 journalists from Multan, Khanewal, Vehari and Lodhran have been registered with the Multan Press Club, but only 60 to 70 of those have degrees in journalism, Hameed said.
This is because the government has not introduced journalism courses in colleges, he said.
“Journalists from the region do not get admissions in relevant postgraduate programmes because universities demand that they have studied journalism at the graduate level,” said Hameed.
He said that it was clear that the government did not encourage professional education for journalists.
“I always wanted to be a journalist but I found out that journalism was not taught at the intermediate level,” Shakeel Rao of Aaj television told The Express Tribune, “So I quit studies and joined the TV channel after I matriculated.”
JRA General Secretary Mazhar Khan said that four faculty members for journalism at the Government Postgraduate College in Sahiwal taught Pakistan studies instead. “The instructors have not been transferred to colleges where they could teach the subject they were hired for,” he said. Even though the official records show that the instructors teach journalism, there are no students in the programme, he said, “That needs to be rectified…journalists should be taught the subject at the intermediate and graduate level so they can learn media ethics.”
Hameed said that applications sent to the government to introduce journalism in the college curricula had been rejected several times. “We cannot allow the government to discriminate against south Punjab…we must show our solidarity,” he said.
Reporters in the region had twice been summoned by the Supreme Court chief justice for erroneous reporting, he said, “This is because they have not been taught media ethics.” A private news channel in Khanewal had previously reported a vani case that had not occurred. More than 10 officials were transferred as a result of that, he said.
The government must allocate seats for journalism and mass communication in colleges and universities in the region, he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2013.