BAHAWALPUR, April 13: Federal Secretary for Information and Broadcasting Syed Anwar Mahmood has urged the journalists to discharge their duty while keeping in view the national interest supreme.

This he said while speaking at the concluding ceremony of a seven-day Mass Communication Professors’ National Workshop of Universities at Islamia University.

He also gave away certificates to delegates and participants of the workshop held here in collaboration with Higher Education Commission.

The information secretary said it was not binding upon journalists that they should always rely on Western media and follow their stories.

Referring to the recent reporting on Iraq by foreign correspondents accompanying the US-led allied forces, he termed their reports rather biased and confined to the areas where they were based. He regretted that some local reporters had misguided the masses by propagating that Pakistan was next in the US list after Iraq.

Mr Mahmood underlined the need for introducing ‘cyber education’ in Mass Communication departments of all universities.

He said Indian cyber experts had attempted five times in the past to hack into our official websites. To counter this, we had to acquire expert services from abroad as we had no skilled person in this field, he claimed.

The secretary announced granting of two computer sets to Islamia University’s Mass Communication department.

Later talking to newsmen, Mr Mahmood said as part of modernizing media institutions Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali had provided a Rs400 million grant to acquire new equipment and recruit staff in Radio and TV stations.

He said Radio Pakistan was installing three medium wave transmitters of 100 kilowatts each for the establishment of a new radio network of news and current affairs. To counter Indian propaganda, a short wave transmitter near Rawat (Rawalpindi) would also be installed. Over and above, he said licences for setting up new TV and Radio channels had also been issued in the private sector.

NEW AD POLICY: The new advertisement policy will not be enforced ‘arbitrarily’ and APNS and the government institutions concerned will be consulted and for this purpose a meeting of media managers has been summoned in Islamabad on Thursday.