Staff Reporter Karachi
The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) expresses its grave concern over the disastrous effects of the media policies of the Federal and provincial governments and urges upon the governments to consult the stakeholders for the reversal of these policies.
The Executive Committee of the APNS at its meeting chaired by its President, Hameed Haroon has considered the state of print media in the country and noted that the new media policies have devastating effects on the member publications especially, the smaller and regional publications, who were facing acute financial crunch.
They were of the considered view, if these policies were not reviewed in consultation with the APNS, many publications have to close down their operations resulting in a large scale retrenchment and unemployment of journalists and media workers.
The Executive Committee noted that under the new policy, the PID and provincial Information Departments of the Punjab and KPK have been empowered to select the media for the government advertising thus depriving the clients of their rights to choose the respective media for the dissemination of their message.
Hameed Haroon, President, Sarmad Ali, Secretary General, Syed Muhammad Munir Jilani, Joint Secretary, Shahab Zuberi, Finance Secretary, Mehtab Khan (Daily Ausaf), Fauzia Shaheen (Monthly Dastak), Najamuddin Sheikh (D/Deynat), Kazi Asad Abid (Fortnightly Ibrat), Syed Akbar Tahir (D/Jasarat), Faisal Shahjehan (Daily Jiddat, Karachi), Javed Mehr Shamsi (Daily Kaleem), Aslam Leghari (Daily Kawish), Muhammad Manzoor Rana (Daily Mashriq, Quetta), Mushtaq Ahmed Qureshi (M/Naey Ufaq), Faisal Zahid Malik (D/Pakistan Observer), Dr. Waqar Yousuf Azeemi (M/Roohani Digest), Khushnood Ali Khan (Daily Sahafat), Humayun Gulzar (Daily Saydat), Riaz Ahmed Mansuri (M/The Cricketer) and Muhammad Saleem (Daily Sindh Sujaag) attended the meeting.
