ISLAMABAD: Following the defence ministry’s complaint to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) against Geo TV, there has been considerable discussion in the public sphere on the wisdom of asking for the revocation of a particular TV channel’s licence.
Senior journalists and media practitioners warn that the regulator itself is ill-equipped to deal with a case of this magnitude and needs to be reformed before such matters can be put before it.
Recent calls for greater regulation of the media in Pakistan came after Geo News broadcast allegations – levelled by Hamid Mir’s brother – against the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its director general. Mir was severely injured in an attack by unidentified gunmen in Karachi. The channel reported that before the attack, Mir had expressed concerns that his life may be in danger and named certain ISI operatives as suspects.
“It is easiest to pull the plug,” says Murtaza Solangi, former director-general of the state-run Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, referring to the government’s plea for cancellation of Geo TV’s licence.
“But the airwaves belong to the people and the muzzling of a section of the media must not be acceptable at any stage.”
“Pemra lacks the technical expertise to adjudicate on matters that require the exercise of editorial judgment, as there is no one there who understands the modern media,” Solangi said, adding that “Before reforming the media, we need to reform the regulator”.
Senior journalist Imtiaz Alam agrees. Talking to Dawn, he said Pemra did not have a proper structure and that media practitioners had long been calling for the selection of its chief on a bi-partisan basis, as in the case of the Election Commission of Pakistan. “Pemra should be responsible to parliament, not the information ministry,” he said.
Pemra’s legal quagmire
This view is lent credence by Pemra’s recent legal troubles. The authority has been without a full-time chairman since President Mamnoon Hussain sacked former chairman Chaudhry Rashid Ahmed on April 17.
In the absence of the chairman, a three-member committee has been running the regulator’s affairs, but it too has also been challenged in the Islamabad High Court. Legal experts maintain that this is against the rules and leaves all actions, taken at this point, open to challenge.
The regulatory authority has had a chequered past.
“The Pemra law predates the sector it regulates and was based on an imagined and oversimplified view of the broadcast industry,” says Adnan Rehmat, a media development specialist associated with Civic Action Resources.
Pemra was established on March 1, 2002, at a time when viewers only had Pakistan Television, Shalimar Television Network (formerly People’s Television Network) and the newly-launched Indus Vision to choose from. Geo TV, one of the first major private TV channels, was launched on August 14, 2002.
Pemra regulations, Rehmat says, contain more don’ts than dos and even then, the ordinance did not provide adequate protection against practices such as ‘cross-media ownership’ right at the outset, allowing select groups to acquire licences and set up multiple media enterprises.
The ordinance’s definition of ‘acceptable content’ is also very vague, something that, media practitioners argue, makes editorial decision-making a very arbitrary and subjective process where red-lines are violated on a daily basis.
This ambiguity, Rehmat says, stems from the way the ordinance was written - without any cognizance of the modern requirements of media and the expansion of media to mobile technology and the Internet. “Web TV and radio stations are quite common now, but Pemra has no idea of how to regulate them,” he says.“Pemra is also one of those rare government organisations that are actually making money,” Rehmat says.
This is one of the reasons why it is commonly perceived among media circles as a ‘money-making machine’ and not a proper regulatory authority.
Due to the way it is structured, Pemra makes too many exceptions, which are given cover in the ordinance itself.
In addition, Pemra lacks a proper enforcement mechanism for its decisions. As a result, Rehmat says, over 700 cases related to TV channels and radio stations are pending before various courts in the country. “They (media owners) go to court because Pemra cannot adjudicate on these matters,” he said.
Faisal Sherjan, a senior media professional associated with the Jang Group, referred to the UK’s model of regulation, where the Ofcom was created in response to the changing and overlapping nature of modern communication technology. Ofcom is a sort of ‘super-regulator’, mandated to radio, print, TV and online content, as well as issuing licences to media organisations.
This, he maintains, creates a more well-defined environment for professionals.
“Regulation does not and should not mean censorship,” Sherjan maintains, adding that a regulator’s primary responsibility is to develop the industry, not police it.
But nearly all commentators agree that if Pemra does not adapt to the changing times, its authority and utility will diminish drastically.
“If its role does not change, the advent of mobile broadband and the availability of Internet and TV on people’s phones may soon render the regulator irrelevant,” Rehmat concluded.
Establishment’s appendix
But not every one believes there is room for a regulatory body.
Senior journalist I.A. Rehman called Pemra ‘an appendix of the establishment’.
“It is a flawed institution, whose powers conflict with the fundamental right of the media to freedom of expression,” he told Dawn.
Asked if he viewed the role of the regulator as being important in the long-run, Rehman retorted, “Regulate what?”
He said that remedies to check the media if it overstepped its boundaries already exist within the legal framework. He stressed that the best kind of regulation was voluntary and developed in-house by the media itself.
