Journalists object to ‘grand sale’ of newspapers
WHITHER PAKISTANI JOURNALISM?
Feb 25, 2025
IT’S a travesty of justice when a lawful and proper court decision is either denied or delayed. What then is a travesty of journalism? Well, it’s a travesty of journalism when a media house parades propaganda as news.
Several Urdu newspapers on Tuesday indulged in the abhorrent practice of passing off fake news as genuine ones by splashing across their front pages certain ‘advertorials’. One is not talking here of one or two adverts but eight to ten of them that all sang praises of just one person — Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif. All the newspapers had the same layout as each carried no less than five pictures of the chief minister!
At the bottom of the pages the following words were inscribed in white and green: “When there’s a spirit of service nothing is impossible — Punjab government.” Phrases like “Paid Content” or “Advertorial” were nowhere to be seen.
Prominent among the newspapers that tragically sold their front pages to a political party were ‘Jang’, ‘Express’, and ‘Dunya’ that are the country’s largest-selling dailies. Fortunately, no English newspaper was involved in the scam.
The way Maryam Nawaz’s so-called “great performance as chief minister” has been publicised by the aforesaid newspapers reminded one of a similar exercise that was carried out earlier this month to extol Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as the “ultimate saviour of the country”. The only difference was that all the dailies that carried the advertorials had cutouts of the prime minister right in the middle of the pages.
Such episodes show clearly that even some reputable newspapers, faced with the prospect of making losses instead of profits, are fast lowering their standards. Their dwindling circulations and revenues have made them make many compromises in their quest for staying afloat.
The alarming trend of lowering standards in order to survive financially was criticised on Tuesday in a WhatsApp group of independent-minded journalists by well-known author and analyst Mazhar Abbas of Geo TV. The other members of the group who echoed his sentiments were senior journalists Sohail Sangi, Qazi Asif, Shahid Iqbal, and Noreen Ahmed.
The woeful trend was also discussed in detail by senior journalist Syed Talat Hussain in a special vlog on the matter.
Speaking to ‘So that’s the story’, a newsman said that all independent-minded journalists should mount a campaign against the alarming trend, making it apparent to all the stakeholders that such controversial steps should never be taken “in their name”.