International Association Of Independent Journalists Inc.

[IAIJ]

Citizen Journalism in Pakistan


By Muhammad Ather Khurram


There is no doubt that citizen journalism is rising, it is necessary for a country like Pakistan and social media and blogs have played a major role in journalism. Especially for the dissident discourse of the youth, the internet has proved to be the safe haven where questions over orthodox and traditionally established notions could be asked without fear of a violent backlash so citizen journalists are more vocal where as professional journalists are more resourceful. Citizen journalists are neither regular journalists and nor do they achieve the basic education of journalism and proper experience in that field. Also they are not on the payroll of newspapers and channels nor attached to them in a proper way. Even they themselves don’t always have an idea if what they are doing is journalism or not. Usually such people are political or social workers or people having literary sense. They themselves inform newspapers about the incidents of their areas; make telephone calls, send fax on their own expense, reach the newspaper office using their own ride and inform them about the important situations and incidents causing tension for themselves and their habitation. But at the same time such information is also the news for newspapers and newspapers are incomplete without this news. Such people inform police and emergency services immediately in case of any accident and then also inform newspapers about it. Social media has transformed the debate around democracy and access to information in Pakistan by giving citizens and activists the power to write about topics that are impossible to cover in the traditional media.

In Pakistan PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) has been established under PEMRA Ordinance 2002 to facilitate and regulate the private electronic media. It has a mandate to improve the standards of information, education and entertainment and to enlarge the choice available to the people of Pakistan including news, current affairs, religious knowledge, art and culture as well as science and technology. Recently a newly launched TV channel “Hero TV” announced that famous model Veena Malik will host a religious program, on this issue Pakistani citizens by social media condemned the channel and reported to PEMRA and you can see by this link (http://www.pemra.gov.pk/complaints/) that in July 2012 there is 3641 complaints against that TV channel. You can also see the complaints against all TV channels and this is the first step, so there is no doubt that citizen journalism is rising in Pakistan.

Citizen journalists providing news and sometimes exclusive stories of great importance to newspapers and channels without any journalistic concern and financial benefits are practically meant as a backbone for media. Some Pakistani news channels like “Dawn News”, “SAMMA News”, etc. start citizen journalism on their website and invite people to send reports. This is a very good sign in Pakistani media and I think all Pakistani news channels and newspapers should give privileges to citizen journalists for their bright future.