KARACHI, May 22: The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) has expressed its concern at the "federal information ministry's anxiety to use government advertising as a tool to intimidate the free press".

A statement issued by the APNS on Saturday referred to the coordination meeting of provincial information ministers chaired by the federal information minister, where the provinces were said to have demanded that government advertising be linked to the implementation of the 7th Wage Board award.

The APNS said it was surprised that instead of deliberating on pending issues of government-press relations, namely, the formation of a Press Council, amendments in the Freedom of Information Act and equitable distribution of the government advertisements to genuine publications, the meeting chose to discuss a matter irrelevant to provincial information ministers.

The APNS said, as the federal and provincial information ministers were well aware, the APNS had challenged the Wage Board award in courts on the basis of its stand that it was unconstitutional, discriminatory, excessive and militated against the freedom of press by financially crippling the print media.

The APNS expressed the view that journalists should be given fair wages according to market forces rather than have them set by an unconstitutional, discriminatory and obsolete mechanism devised by successive governments to intimidate the Press.

So far as the proposal of linking the government advertising with the implementation of the Wage Board award was concerned, the APNS noted that the government advertising was already being distributed in a discriminatory manner so as to intimidate, coerce and browbeat dissenting newspapers.

However, the APNS said, it welcomed any dialogue with the government on the Wage Board issue as long as it was intended to find ways and means of doing away with the Wage Board and the Newspapers Employees Act 1973.

The APNS said the government advertising in this information age should be deregulated and be freed from the shackles whimsically imposed by the federal information ministry. It said it would welcome any dialogue on the best way of deregulating the government advertising and ensuring its transparent distribution.