IN the Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index rankings 2009, Pakistan is given 159th place out of a total of 175 countries. According to the organisation’s website, the ranks are awarded on the basis of questionnaires that are circulated amongst journalists and media experts. These relate to instances of physical assault/intimidation, indirect pressure in the form of intelligence surveillance and corporate manipulation, official censorship and self-censorship, economic influence, the extent of control of media, etc.
The objective is to assess “the state of press freedom in the world. It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom.” Given the survey’s scope and different areas of focus several points emerge.
First, one-party states, theocracies, police states and the like, which practise the systemic suppression of thought and expression and ruthlessly crush dissent are likely to be at the bottom of the list. Pakistan is not a one-party state, neither a theocracy nor a conservative monarchy allied to some religious establishment like Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is also not a police state and if the November 2007 emergency of Musharraf’s fading military regime is any indication such methods are likely to prove counterproductive. Criticism of the rulers and their policies are open and so is the journalistic investigation and exposure of their crimes and misdemeanours.
The openness, volume and severity of this criticism are greater than nearly all other Asian or African countries. While one can certainly detect preferences in the reportage and opinions of Pakistani news channels and newspapers with some being more conservative, others moderate and liberal, this is hardly anything unique to Pakistan. Similar divisions exist in the news media of nearly all industrialised liberal democracies. The fact is that the people of Pakistan, like those of the United States of America, have a choice that they can exercise freely. And yet, Pakistan’s rank in the worldwide press freedom index places it in the same category as Uzbekistan (160), Saudi Arabia (163), Burma (171) and Iran (172). Amazingly, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo tie for 148th place while Afghanistan gets 149th and Qadhafi’s Libya comes 156th.
Second, states that are experiencing insurgency, escalating criminal activity or terrorism are likely to take a battering when it comes to the safety of journalists. The evaluation criteria include acts of violence and oppression perpetrated by non-state as well as state actors on the news media. On this front, one is constrained to admit that Pakistan is not going to do nearly as well as it should though other countries that also face widening insurgencies and unrest like India (105) have a far better position on the list. The general level of insecurity due to the terrorist campaign has placed all of Pakistan’s national institutions under assault or threat of assault. Pakistan’s journalists, more so than their colleagues in other parts of the world, operate at considerable risk to themselves.
Without making any excuses for Pakistan’s unsafe environment it must be said that the situation cannot be worse or even as bad as Afghanistan, where there is no functional state to speak of, or the besieged Palestinian Territories (161) or pirate-warlord dominated Somalia (164) that has been in chaos for the past 19 years. At the same time the degree of media freedom is perceptibly greater in Pakistan than in other trouble spots. The government has often pleaded with the news media to show greater restraint when it comes to covering acts of terrorism. It is also a matter of some interest that terrorist organisations in Pakistan seek to manipulate the freedom of the media to serve their own interests. The Pakistani media also deserves great credit for operating with a high level of freedom in a deteriorating security environment. That said, since the Reporters Without Borders index is called the “Worldwide Press Freedoms Index Rankings” and not the press safety ranking, media freedom should get more weight in the final score than safety.
Third, there is the question of corporate or state ownership of, or influence upon, the media. In countries with a highly developed corporate sector that has branched out into owning and operating news media organisations it stands to reason that the owners will lay down certain policy parameters. Advertising revenues are another source of indirect corporate control.
That the state-owned PTV channels generally support the government line though even here the growing appeal of live programming and competition from the private sector has considerably diluted the viability of old-fashioned censorship. One must also concede that the news media structure is somewhat like an oligopoly with a few well-established media conglomerates well ahead of the rest of the pack. And yet, there are 70 or so privately owned television channels and scores of newspapers that collectively act as a testament to Pakistan’s diversity of opinion and audience. It would take very careful comparative study to determine whether at a structural or operational level Pakistan’s media is more subject to state influence and corporate subversion than the media in the industrial democracies or in the developing world.
Finally, there is the issue of self-censorship and public censorship of press, electronic media and the Internet. Pakistan is one of very few countries where it is possible to openly question national identity, the right to exist as a separate country, national security policy and the public role of religion/ideology. There is a mainstream opinion that stands for a strong national defence inclusive of nuclear weapons and a public role for Islam within a democratic constitutional framework but would be relieved if relations with India were normalised and religious radicalism rolled back.
There are also fringe opinions on the liberal left and the religious right and lobbies for and against a particular line of action on just about any major issue. But that is not very different from lobbies in the United States or the self-censorship exercised by Western media when it comes to covering the Middle East or by the Indian media when it involves Kashmir.
The Internet remains wide open in Pakistan. In contrast, countries like Saudi Arabia and China (168) systematically block websites deemed subversive. Iran, during the recent protests after the presidential elections, took the popular Facebook website offline and is reputed to keep a close eye on what goes on the Internet. While a more thorough study of Internet freedom in Pakistan ought to be conducted it is abundantly clear that on this count it does not fall in the same category as Saudi Arabia, China and Iran.
One can only wonder what methodology would enable Pakistan to be bracketed alongside one party dictatorships, theocratic police states and warlord infested polities on the issue of press freedom. A request for clarification from Reporters Without Borders for Pakistan’s was sought in this regard. A representative from the Asia-Pacific Desk, stated: “Thanks for your comments about the ranking. In fact, it is not a ranking about media diversity or pluralism, but a press freedom violations ranking. The bad situation of Pakistan in the ranking is mainly due to the attacks against journalists by [T]aliban and other groups, but also some restrictions by the state.”
The representative’s clarification raised far more questions than it answered. It was astonishing to find out that the ranking was not about a free media expressing a plurality of views with minimal or no censorship but concerned primarily with press freedom violations. If that is the case Reporters Without Borders should rename its index the Worldwide Press Freedom Violations Ranking. The organisation should also clarify its highly misleading paper on the methodology of its survey given that a country that does well on
multiple fronts can have its entire score ruined by threats made to journalists by the Taliban, other militant groups, and some interference by the government. When more questions were submitted to it asking, for instance, how exactly, going by the Taliban and militancy theory, Afghanistan ended up getting a higher ranking than Pakistan, no response was received. In this particular instance, silence says far more than any number of clarifications could.
Global rankings of all sorts have become a very popular phenomenon. And in some cases these rankings do reflect reality. In terms of Transparency International’s corruption ranking Pakistan’s placement towards the bottom of the list is probably well deserved. In the case of press freedom, however, Pakistan deserves much better than 159th place out of 175.
The writer is a faculty member of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Department of History, Islamabad.
The objective is to assess “the state of press freedom in the world. It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom.” Given the survey’s scope and different areas of focus several points emerge.
First, one-party states, theocracies, police states and the like, which practise the systemic suppression of thought and expression and ruthlessly crush dissent are likely to be at the bottom of the list. Pakistan is not a one-party state, neither a theocracy nor a conservative monarchy allied to some religious establishment like Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is also not a police state and if the November 2007 emergency of Musharraf’s fading military regime is any indication such methods are likely to prove counterproductive. Criticism of the rulers and their policies are open and so is the journalistic investigation and exposure of their crimes and misdemeanours.
The openness, volume and severity of this criticism are greater than nearly all other Asian or African countries. While one can certainly detect preferences in the reportage and opinions of Pakistani news channels and newspapers with some being more conservative, others moderate and liberal, this is hardly anything unique to Pakistan. Similar divisions exist in the news media of nearly all industrialised liberal democracies. The fact is that the people of Pakistan, like those of the United States of America, have a choice that they can exercise freely. And yet, Pakistan’s rank in the worldwide press freedom index places it in the same category as Uzbekistan (160), Saudi Arabia (163), Burma (171) and Iran (172). Amazingly, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo tie for 148th place while Afghanistan gets 149th and Qadhafi’s Libya comes 156th.
Second, states that are experiencing insurgency, escalating criminal activity or terrorism are likely to take a battering when it comes to the safety of journalists. The evaluation criteria include acts of violence and oppression perpetrated by non-state as well as state actors on the news media. On this front, one is constrained to admit that Pakistan is not going to do nearly as well as it should though other countries that also face widening insurgencies and unrest like India (105) have a far better position on the list. The general level of insecurity due to the terrorist campaign has placed all of Pakistan’s national institutions under assault or threat of assault. Pakistan’s journalists, more so than their colleagues in other parts of the world, operate at considerable risk to themselves.
Without making any excuses for Pakistan’s unsafe environment it must be said that the situation cannot be worse or even as bad as Afghanistan, where there is no functional state to speak of, or the besieged Palestinian Territories (161) or pirate-warlord dominated Somalia (164) that has been in chaos for the past 19 years. At the same time the degree of media freedom is perceptibly greater in Pakistan than in other trouble spots. The government has often pleaded with the news media to show greater restraint when it comes to covering acts of terrorism. It is also a matter of some interest that terrorist organisations in Pakistan seek to manipulate the freedom of the media to serve their own interests. The Pakistani media also deserves great credit for operating with a high level of freedom in a deteriorating security environment. That said, since the Reporters Without Borders index is called the “Worldwide Press Freedoms Index Rankings” and not the press safety ranking, media freedom should get more weight in the final score than safety.
Third, there is the question of corporate or state ownership of, or influence upon, the media. In countries with a highly developed corporate sector that has branched out into owning and operating news media organisations it stands to reason that the owners will lay down certain policy parameters. Advertising revenues are another source of indirect corporate control.
That the state-owned PTV channels generally support the government line though even here the growing appeal of live programming and competition from the private sector has considerably diluted the viability of old-fashioned censorship. One must also concede that the news media structure is somewhat like an oligopoly with a few well-established media conglomerates well ahead of the rest of the pack. And yet, there are 70 or so privately owned television channels and scores of newspapers that collectively act as a testament to Pakistan’s diversity of opinion and audience. It would take very careful comparative study to determine whether at a structural or operational level Pakistan’s media is more subject to state influence and corporate subversion than the media in the industrial democracies or in the developing world.
Finally, there is the issue of self-censorship and public censorship of press, electronic media and the Internet. Pakistan is one of very few countries where it is possible to openly question national identity, the right to exist as a separate country, national security policy and the public role of religion/ideology. There is a mainstream opinion that stands for a strong national defence inclusive of nuclear weapons and a public role for Islam within a democratic constitutional framework but would be relieved if relations with India were normalised and religious radicalism rolled back.
There are also fringe opinions on the liberal left and the religious right and lobbies for and against a particular line of action on just about any major issue. But that is not very different from lobbies in the United States or the self-censorship exercised by Western media when it comes to covering the Middle East or by the Indian media when it involves Kashmir.
The Internet remains wide open in Pakistan. In contrast, countries like Saudi Arabia and China (168) systematically block websites deemed subversive. Iran, during the recent protests after the presidential elections, took the popular Facebook website offline and is reputed to keep a close eye on what goes on the Internet. While a more thorough study of Internet freedom in Pakistan ought to be conducted it is abundantly clear that on this count it does not fall in the same category as Saudi Arabia, China and Iran.
One can only wonder what methodology would enable Pakistan to be bracketed alongside one party dictatorships, theocratic police states and warlord infested polities on the issue of press freedom. A request for clarification from Reporters Without Borders for Pakistan’s was sought in this regard. A representative from the Asia-Pacific Desk, stated: “Thanks for your comments about the ranking. In fact, it is not a ranking about media diversity or pluralism, but a press freedom violations ranking. The bad situation of Pakistan in the ranking is mainly due to the attacks against journalists by [T]aliban and other groups, but also some restrictions by the state.”
The representative’s clarification raised far more questions than it answered. It was astonishing to find out that the ranking was not about a free media expressing a plurality of views with minimal or no censorship but concerned primarily with press freedom violations. If that is the case Reporters Without Borders should rename its index the Worldwide Press Freedom Violations Ranking. The organisation should also clarify its highly misleading paper on the methodology of its survey given that a country that does well on
multiple fronts can have its entire score ruined by threats made to journalists by the Taliban, other militant groups, and some interference by the government. When more questions were submitted to it asking, for instance, how exactly, going by the Taliban and militancy theory, Afghanistan ended up getting a higher ranking than Pakistan, no response was received. In this particular instance, silence says far more than any number of clarifications could.
Global rankings of all sorts have become a very popular phenomenon. And in some cases these rankings do reflect reality. In terms of Transparency International’s corruption ranking Pakistan’s placement towards the bottom of the list is probably well deserved. In the case of press freedom, however, Pakistan deserves much better than 159th place out of 175.
The writer is a faculty member of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Department of History, Islamabad.
Comments
Post a Comment