Sunday, October 31, 2010

PFUJ hailed appointment of News Ombudsman by a media group


PFUJ hailed appointment of News Ombudsman by a media group

ISLAMABAD Oct 31 :- The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has welcomed the innovative decision of Express Group for creating a mechanism to safeguard principles and cause of journalistic integrity and transparency by appointing an ombudsman in the institution, a news release said here Sunday.


Hailing the Express Group announcement for appointment of Ombudsman PFUJ said “at a time when many media organizations seem to suffer from a disconnect from their audiences, ombudsmen are a unique demonstration that a media organization takes its commitment to the public seriously.”


The PFUJ expressed the hope that the spirit behind the appointment of Ombudsman should be translated in toto as per its objectives.


Commenting on the commitment of the Express Group ”in the interest of promoting journalistic integrity and transparency, The Express Tribune will have Justice (Retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim as ombudsman for the paper’, the PFUJ said that complainants of irresponsible journalism, scuffles, and open criticism of the coverage and publications of the news, talk shows, comments have become order of the day and public resentment as well as criticism is now an open secret.


In this scenario, the PFUJ said the move of the Express Group is appreciable which would go a long way to uphold standard in the profession.


The PFUJ said at present one of the major cause of declining professional standards was due to damage done to the institution of the “Editor” over the years, non-existence of Code of Ethics and open violation of basic principle of airing contents of news and publications without proper check or verification.


The PFUJ also hailed the selection of Mr. Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, who is a respected, well-known jurist and constitutional expert, besides champion of human rights and freedom of expression and independence of the press.


The PFUJ said print and electronic media have certain social obligations and top most responsibility of the media is to keep the people fully abreast about true facts without any prejudice and bias and scandalizing the issue and creating chaos for achieving personal motives.
The PFUJ stressed upon other media houses also to follow the suit and adopt such mechanism to safeguard the interests of readers and the viewers. At the same time the PFUJ urged the group and other media houses that time has come when they should themselves realize the importance of rule of law, in their organizations, implement labour laws, ensure fair wages to their workers, and to formulate a gender policy, and to provide security and safety to media persons.


Unless media houses do not introduce culture of fairness of collections of news material and facts through fairly paid and professional skills, the dream of “fairness in media cannot be achieved” and all such measures would prove a non-starter and cannot enhance the deteriorating image of media in society,” the PFUJ warned.




Posted by shamsul Islam Naz at 9:41 AM

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