ISLAMABAD: A two-man media commission has highlighted the need of a comprehensive review of all the media laws, rules and codes in context of the new objective conditions.

Retired Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid and Javed Jabbar, a former senator, were members of the commission.

“While fundamental ethical values are eternal and universal, the definitions of terms, words and phrases in the context of usage by media and in the context of the immediacy of news coverage require re-visitation and possible reinterpretation,” the commission suggested in its recommendations, a copy of which is available with Dawn.

The media commission was appointed by a Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, on Jan 15 in response to petitions filed by journalists Hamid Mir and Absar Alam requesting the court to disclose the names of beneficiaries of the secret funds being maintained by the ministry.

The voluminous report, along with recommendations, was submitted before the Supreme Court on July 3.

It would be most timely and useful, the commission said, that purposeful consultations are conducted both within the media sector, with civil society and with administrative ministries and departments concerned.

The commission recommended that the parliamentary standing committees and stakeholders initiate such consultations at the earliest to develop a consensus with due reference to both the changed media landscape at home and with reference to the regional and international contexts.

To ensure that such a process is result-bound and time-bound, the commission recommended that a period of six months be specified at the end of which there should be a consensual agreement on the new codes.

The commission also suggested that Pakistan Television (PTV), Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) and the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) be converted into authentically autonomous entities.

STATE’S SHARE: It asked to give due consideration to a suggestion for reducing the shareholding of the state in the PTV by 75 per cent to bring it to 25 per cent or less. The remaining 75 per cent shares be offered to the public at large through stock exchanges and through a special offering with the conditionality that no single organisations/investors/citizen can hold more than 2pc of the total shares.

Owners of private television channels should not be eligible to own any shares in PTV to prevent conflict of interests. The aim of dispersing and diffusing ownership of shares so broadly is to prevent any single group from exercising undue control over the editorial policy and programme content, the report said.

The commission has also reserved some flak for the news media like when it said that individuals are given the opportunity to become reporters, anchors, news readers or content controllers without comprehensive training in print and broadcast journalism.Likewise the advertisers virtually dictate prime time content preferences by using a narrow relatively non-representative, heavily urban and consumption-oriented rating system to pressurize channels into cut-throat competition and to a lowering of standards of content in addition to excessive commercialism e.g. advertising messages superimposed on screens during unrelated content, prolonged mid-breaks etc.

And along with the ‘breaking news’ the commission said, race hysteria, hype and trivialization that promote acrimony, conflict and grievance.

The report also highlighted the fragmentation of audiences due to proliferation of choices in place of singular and cohesive sharing of content, non-transparency in the financial aspects of media e.g. advertising rates charged, grants or support received from overseas sources, fees and salaries paid to staff, assets and income of media owners.

The report also indicated the absence of effective, enforced self regulation mechanisms, absence of credible, audience-oriented complaints mechanisms and excessive use of Indian content on TV and in FM Radio stations and new surge in dubbed content from Turkey at the expense of the Pakistani content. It also highlighted the tendency on part of some sections of media to conduct criticism of civil and military institutions in terms that are remarkably similar to criticism of the same institutions by sections of overseas media including Indian media, thereby adversely impacting internal national cohesion and solidarity during a time when the country faces harsh internal as well as external threats.

The commission also talked about the inability of the Pemra (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) to enforce discipline due to excessive proliferation of channels (satellite channels plus CD in-house channels of each cable TV distributor) and due to stay orders from the high courts.