00:00 Thank you both for your time.
00:02 We have spoken to other senior journalists and anchors
00:05 and asked them to comment on the new law passed by the government.
00:10 We have seen that the people of Pakistan have more or less the same concerns
00:16 as Mir and Afzal Butt have.
00:20 Let's hear what the rest of the journalists think about the bill.
00:27 They have killed so many people.
00:30 They have stabbed the freedom of the press.
00:34 There is no justification for this.
00:36 One element that has been created is misinformation.
00:39 Misinformation is when you make a mistake, but it is unintentional.
00:43 It is okay if it is a mistake in the facts, a mistake in the name,
00:47 or a news break that did not exist.
00:51 But from the outset, if something is wrong, then all the journalists
00:58 and channels think that this should be discouraged.
01:02 Now, there are two or three questions.
01:04 The government in its last days, in its last days,
01:07 this is the last session of the National Assembly,
01:09 why is it going to pass such a bill?
01:12 If this bill was so simple, then the government has been in existence for 16 months.
01:17 They should have passed it earlier.
01:19 Secondly, yesterday when this bill was presented to the National Assembly,
01:24 if you check from any place, there were 15-20 people present.
01:30 It was not read there.
01:33 The speaker read it as it was and passed it.
01:37 No one knew anything.
01:39 The definition of misinformation and disinformation has been put in the law at will.
01:44 If I, as a journalist, do a story tomorrow,
01:49 I have the right under the rules of the Supreme Court of Pakistan,
01:55 that I should not tell information about my source,
01:59 that where did I get this news from.
02:01 This is the fundamental right of a journalist,
02:04 it has been tried to deprive him of this right under this law.
02:09 If you look at it carefully, it indicates the use of extreme restrictions.
02:15 It seems that the government wants to control the media through Pemra.
02:23 It will not be favourable, it will be tried to control.
02:27 The problem I found was that Pemra will decide whether the news is just news or credible news.
02:34 I see an attempt to interfere in the journalistic domain.
02:40 The editor and director of news have an important role in any Pakistani or world media institution.
02:48 They decide how credible the news is,
02:52 how strong the support is,
02:55 and whether the news should be published or not.
02:58 How can the regulator decide this?
03:01 The Pemra Amendment Bill, which is being proposed and proposed,
03:10 is very worrisome.
03:15 First, the question arises that a government whose term is two to three weeks,
03:22 why will it introduce this bill and why will it introduce these amendments?
03:29 The role of Pemra is that it should not be an interfering body.
03:35 It should set a standard and implement it with the help of its broadcasters and journalists.
03:43 The bureaucracy will not tell us what the responsibilities of journalism are.
03:48 The bureaucracy cannot tell us what the news is.
03:52 The question is, which news is wrong, which news is correct, what are the sources of which news,
03:59 what news has come to you,
04:02 a journalist can decide this, not the Pemra chairman.
04:07 Editorial control is an attempt to transfer from the institutions, journalists, media to someone else.
04:14 Media is regulated all over the world, but no institution makes the decision about what is news or not.
04:21 The regulator does not do it, the journalists do it, who have spent their lives in this profession.
04:27 The Pemra Amendment Bill, which has now been passed, is hiding many obstacles behind the frostings.
04:33 The responsibility has been placed on the shoulders of journalists, which should actually be of the government's investigative agencies.
04:40 Misinformation, disinformation, there should be filters in the channels to control it,
04:47 there should be accountability on it, but governments cannot do this.
04:52 Almost all the journalists who have a view across the board,
04:57 have only one point, one thing in common, that regulation should be there.
05:05 But how can a bureaucrat or a government official determine
05:10 whether the health of the news is good, whether its source is correct, is it misinformation or disinformation?
05:17 So everyone is in agreement on this, and everyone is concerned about this bill.
05:20 We will go back to the break and then we will talk about the price of sugar is soaring.
05:25 We were told that when the price increases, there are thefts at that time.
05:29 We will talk about the break, stay with us.
