Political Arena in Pakistan and Objectivity of Urdu Print Media: A Study of Panama Issue

Abstract

This research paper examined the scenario of objectivity in Pakistani print media keeping in view the reportage of Panama issue in leading Urdu Dailies. The study investigated the situation whether the Urdu print media remained objective, unbiased, and non-judgmental during reportage of the big corruption scandal of the history of the political arena in Pakistan. The paper assessed the position of factual and non-factual reportage rate in three big Urdu Dailies. The study might be help full to understand the scenario of reportage on big venality issues in Urdu Print World. The results presented the outlines behind the picture of alteration in facts and framed news coverage. The study is concluded with the indications of policy change on news reportage. The applying position of ethical grounds of news coverage of Panama Issue also remained questionable. The study is the outcome of content analysis and in-depth interviews of senior communication experts.

Ethnic Newspaper Industry in Pakistan and Impacts of Corporate Ownership

“…Last but not least, fierce competition between the commercial interests of Urdu newspapers, journalists' financial issues and lack of journalistic training has led to increasingly sensationalised, biased and irresponsible coverage, produced 'on the cheap'. Violations of various journalism ethics are regularly observed across both types of newspaper ownership (Sultana et al, 2020;Zafar et al, 2018). Recent studies highlight critical gaps in the existing journalism code of ethics (Kamboh & Ittefaq, 2019) and identify underpaid journalism by a few mainstream and regional newspapers as a key factor behind such non-compliance (Gul, 2020;Ittefaq et al, 2021b).…”