UNESCO CHIEF PAYS TRIBUTE TO AFGHAN JOURNALIST KILLED IN HOTEL ATTACK

http://mediaforfreedom.com/New York, Mar 24 2014 10:00AM

The victims of Thursday's attack included AFP journalist Sardar Ahmad, his wife and two of their three children,

The head of the United Nations agency tasked with defending press freedom today paid tribute to journalist Sardar Ahmad, one of several people killed during last week’s attack on the Serena Hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Mr. Ahmad, a senior reporter for Agence France Presse, died along with his wife and two of their three children when gunmen stormed the hotel during the Nowruz celebrations on Thursday. Nine people in total lost their lives.

“I am deeply saddened by the news of this vicious attack and my heartfelt condolences go out to the families of all the victims,” Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said in a news release.

Media commission to guard journalists’ rights coming up, announces PM

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2014/03/19

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday announced that a media commission will be set up to ensure the safety and security of journalists working in Pakistan.

The announcement came from the PM’s meeting with Kati Marton, head of the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

“This commission will propose measures to be adopted by the government to protect journalists in the field and to ensure their well being,” quoted an official statement.

“This would be a commission comprising of media persons, public figures and government members,” it added.

PM Sharif expressed his desire to make Pakistan a journalist friendly country where the national as well as international media community feels safe, secure and respected.

Journalists’ safety

MOHAMMAD ALI BABAKHEL

THE enactment of the Journalists Welfare Endowment Fund Act 2014 by the KP Assembly is a positive measure to extend the state’s welfare umbrella. The fund has been established with an initial capital of Rs50 million. Rs1m shall be paid to the family of a journalist who is killed in an act of terrorism.

Conflict and other forms of hazardous reporting are not new in this part of the world, and journalists here have been exposed to the perils of the profession since long. It is unfortunate that media organisations have not given due importance to the sensitivities associated with such reporting.

BBC Urdu re-launches Sairbeen on Pakistani channel

BBC Urdu re-launches Sairbeen on Pakistani channel

http://www.asianimage.co.uk
BBC Urdu has announced the re-launch of its TV programme, Sairbeen, on Pakistan’s Aaj News channel and online on bbcurdu.com.

From Monday 31 March, the new-look Sairbeen will be broadcast live from London by Aaj News and streamed on bbcurdu.com at 19.30 PST (14.30 GMT) Monday to Friday, covering key global and regional issues.

Sairbeen developed a loyal audience base across Pakistan following its first broadcast in February 2013. Now re-launched in a more concise and dynamic format, as a Monday to Friday programme, Sairbeen returns to the screens as a live broadcast with BBC Urdu’s trademark editorial offer for Pakistan’s TV market. It will also become an essential, prime-time addition to the news schedule of Aaj News.

New project New/s Disruptors will examine technology's impact on journalism

by IJNet

How technology disrupts the news, the ethics of Twitter, citizen journalism in Turkey and more are found in this week's Digital Media Mash Up, produced by the Center for International Media Assistance.

Here are IJNet's picks from this week's stories:

New/s Disruptors wants to change the way we think about diversity, tech, and media

New/s Disruptors is a project dedicated to re-framing the narrative of digital disruption in the news industry using a human-centered, community-first approach. (Nieman Lab, 3/17)

Is there anything more public than Twitter?

In new media environment, the public decides who's a journalist

by James Breiner

Jean-François Fogel has the best description I have heard of the new relationship between journalists and the public in the world of digital media.

Simply put, only the public can decide whose work deserves the respect and attention we previously gave to journalists working at major media. It is the public who decides if a particular voice among the billions on the Internet has the credibility, ethics and independence that we expect from journalists.

Really, any person who publishes on the web and follows the standards of professional journalism can be considered a journalist, Fogel said in an interview. And what are those standards?

Capacity-building talked to highlight academia’s woes

http://www.nation.com.pk/

MIRPUR (AJK) (- Pakistan’s education and academia reporting within the industry is fairly weak. Alarming factors contributing to the knowledge deficit is the media’s limited exposure to real challenges being confronted by education sector in Pakistan and lack of relevant training in the media sector.
“Most of the issues related to education and literacy are being reported not in the right context; this not only undermines but also diminishes the importance of educational, training and child development challenges faced by the society.
Govt Degree College Mirpur Principal Dr Muhammad Arif Khan stated this while addressing the inaugural session of ILM-o-Agahi education journalism workshop held at Kasmir Press Club here the other day.
The ILM-o-AGAHI, one day workshop was organized by Mishal Pakistan in collaboration with Ilm Ideas (a 3 year UK funded-programme). More than 30 education reporters participated in the workshop.

Could robots be the journalists of the future?

Posted byLeila Haddou and Will Franklin Sunday 16 March 2014 18.00 GMT The Guardian

In this digital age, even journalism is being automated. Now over to GUARBOT for the news ...
Is robot journalism the future? It's not quite titanium machines in trenchcoats door-stepping celebrities or buzzing about in newsrooms, but media organisations are increasingly looking to developers to come up with smart ways to incorporate computer algorithms into the daily grind of the news industry. We wanted to test this out, and challenged Will Franklin, a Guardian developer, to create our very own GUARBOT – in a day. Which, we'll admit, was a bit optimistic.

There is a logic at work here, though. The mundane task of trawling through wire copy to spot a newsworthy item could be seen as a waste of resources, especially if all that's required is straight reportage of facts and figures. Surely we should just let computers do the work, while humans get on with more investigative and analytical pieces?

How the media made a big deal out of Thar

By Kapil DevPublished: March 17, 2014,http://tribune.com.pk/

“Crisis-driven media cannot afford to hang about for too long. As a business needs cash turnover, the media needs a crisis turnover and are engaged in crisis production that seeks to find ways of manufacturing them in an easily consumable, spectator-friendly format.”
 –– Arundhati Roy 
The above words of Arundhati Roy represent the exact scenario of the media in Pakistan, particularly in the current situation of drought or famine in Tharparkar. A believer of theology would say that disasters, calamities and catastrophes are divinely ordained, but here in our country, the media seems to be so powerful that it can bring disasters too. Recent reports of death tolls of children in Tharparkar have created panic as if an island of aliens has been discovered.

Mass communication: Veterans warn budding journalists about pitfalls

http://tribune.com.pk/

KARACHI: The attraction of the media as well as its issues and pitfalls were discussed as professionals gave an insight into the industry to the students hoping to enter this field.
‘Transforming Youth Media Summit 2014’, an innovative career-oriented summit, was held to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field of mass communication. ‘Unlimited Boundaries with Responsibility’ was the theme of the event and it gave the participants, including students and professionals, the opportunity to realign their thinking about the requirements for choosing the right career field and to inform them about journalism. Sui Southern Gas Company’s Shahbaz Islam said that most students choose career paths without having any long-term goal in mind. “Today, students don’t have a goal when they decide what to study as their career choice.”

Education advocacy programme for media, policy-makers launched

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

ISLAMABAD: Mishal Pakistan had launched ‘Ilm-o-Agahi’ Education Advocacy Programme to sensitise the media and policy-makers to build consensus on priority educational issues. Under the programme, Mishal would conduct education journalism workshops for reporters and editors. Roundtable meetings and provincial level education conferences would create consensus among the stakeholders to highlight educational issues among media, educationists, policy-makers and legislators. The fourteen month long activity would be funded by “Ilm Ideas”, a three year UK-funded program. According to Article 25-A of the constitution of Pakistan “it is the right of every child to have free education and the government to provide free education to every child”, however, according to the economic survey of Pakistan (2011-12), only 59% of the children had been enrolled in schools across Pakistan.

Insult to humanity:The drougt in Thar raises many questions

Waqqas Mir , March 16, 2014 , http://tns.thenews.com.pk/

drought in Thar (Sindh province of Pakistan)

Let’s begin by stating the obvious: the recent drought and the reported famine in the Tharparkar region of Sindh is a collective failure of the government, the media, the development sector planners as well as the citizens with a voice. There should be no mistake about this.
The print and electronic media has been quick to assert its nauseating self-righteousness and has blamed the elected provincial government as well as officials of the district administration. While there is no dispute that these actors ought to be held accountable, the electronic and print media is particularly culpable too. It is high time that the media admits its own faults — and we should hold the media and ourselves accountable.

Journalists, Intellectuals pay tribute to Khalid Hasan

BY JAAN HAIDER, http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk

WASHINGTON:Pakistani intellectuals and writers paid tribute to Khalid Hasan as they highlighted the late author’s work and contribution to journalism.
His friends and colleagues, who in his long career also worked as Washington correspondent for the Associated Press of Pakistan from 2000 to 2002, gathered under the banner of Washington Policy Analysis Group to commemorate his fifth death anniversary.
Khalid Hasan passed away in Virginia on February 5, 2009, having penned several books and writings on a myriad of subjects. He also translated a series of books including short stories of acclaimed Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto. A prolific writer, Hasan displayed a keen sense of observation and artistic mastery of English language in his over 40 published works on politics, arts and literature.
Journalists Akmal Aleemi and Dr Manzur Ejaz shed light on the personality, last days and work of Hasan, whose edifice of work is known for absorbing delineation of important events in the lives of some major Pakistani figures including Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Noor Jehan and Hamid Jalal.

Noman Mubashir: The one-man show

By Sundar Waqar / Photo: Noman Mubashir / Creative: Asif AliPublished: March 16, 2014

Quirky, animated and flamboyant Noman Mubashir, a Pakistani-Norwegian, is a man of many talents. From cooking up a storm on his cooking show to reuniting families on his travel show, and making history in August 1998 as the first non-ethnic news anchor on Norwegian television, Mubashir has left his audiences with practically little else to desire.
As a news anchor, journalist and author, Mubashir has worked to change the make-up of Norwegian television and showbiz by paving the way for Pakistanis and other ethnicities. The idea which was alien to many two decades ago is now by and large an undeniable reality.
“I always wanted to become a journalist or an author,” says Mubashir. He had never dreamt of becoming a TV host or a news anchor and it wasn’t until he moved to Britain to pursue journalism and returned to Norway for his holidays that he made his breakthrough in television. “I heard that the national TV was planning to launch a new programme about migrants in Norway,” he recalls, tracing the beginnings of the award-winning show Migrapolis. “They were searching for new, talented reporters with a foreign background.”

Online media industry lacks traditional news sense, says journalist and media professor Mark McSherry

JENNIFER FAULL http://www.thedrum.com/

The media industry has had to adapt quickly to the digital world, and in making the move online many organisations have lost one crucial element: news sense.

“Just because the stories are going online you still have to employ the same news judgement in terms of what stories lead,” said Mark McSherry a media professor who has written and edited for publications including Reuters, UK Sunday Times, Bloomberg, South China Morning Post, and the Scotsman.

“Some sites, I’m afraid to say, don’t have the best hierarchy and are not making the best decision about what stories are most important and what stories are not. What is a front page story or a page three story, or page five story? There is a lot of judgement that goes into that and I look at some mainstream news sites and they appear to be not making the right decision.”

Challenges face Pakistani media

Robert J. Byers (http://www.wvgazette.com/)

Razor wire and barrels filled with concrete block the entrance
 to the Dawn newspaper offices in Karachi, Pakistan.

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Asked about a recent journalist "hit list" issued by the Pakistani Taliban and whether any Dawn employees were included, Editor Zaffar Abbas smiled into his teacup, took a sip and acknowledged, "You're looking at one."

On the outside, Abbas doesn't look too concerned about the list.

"Would it help?" he asked and laughed. Then he turned serious. "I'm not saying I'm not scared. I have a family, but I come from a family of journalists.

"Sometimes I think they're going to take me out, but there are people out there more important than me."

Debut novel by young Karachi journalist on finding love and covering violence

by Paul Muir (http://www.thenational.ae/)

“I am a child of Cosmopolitan culture, have been traumatised by supermodels and too many quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its own devices,” reads a quote from Bridget Jones’s Diary on the flyleaf of UAE-born Saba Imtiaz’s debut novel, “a comedy of manners in a city with none” called Karachi, You’re Killing Me!.
It is not hard to see the parallels between chick-lit pioneer Helen Fielding’s bumbling, unlucky-in-love thirty-something struggling to cope with the social and career challenges of life in 1990s London and Imtiaz’s protagonist, Ayesha, a hard-partying, twenty-something reporter looking for romance in contemporary Pakistan’s violent commercial capital.

Pakistan – La Maison de sensationnalisme

BY FARHAD MIRZA (http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk)

Controversy and pseudo journalism
Philippe Lafforgue, the man behind the much maligned La Maison restaurant in Islamabad, has suspiciously vanished from our media’s glare, leaving us with a half-baked controversy. Considering Pakistan’s remarkable plethora of 24-hour news channels, and their dominance over TV ratings, it seems odd that news agencies would so abruptly let go of a story so promisingly lucrative.

After all, it had everything one needs to manufacture a collective experience of national angst. It trekked the impulsive terrain of our colonial subconscious; it irked our sense of shame; it had the white devil imposing his values through the cunning ruse of authentic culinary imports, that too on our land, and then having the audacity to ban us from indulging in his propagated values, even when we were willing to contribute towards his commercial gains. What sort of a man would not even let us buy our right to disobey the law? Has he no principles?

Beyond media freedom

by KHAWAJA MAAZ TARIQ (http://www.nation.com.pk/)

Democracy and free media depend on one another but their interests are not always aligned. Both are by and large considered to go together, and it is true that societies with competitive, pluralistic politics and strong civil societies always have news media that is permitted to criticize the government and reflect a wide range of opinions. In Pakistan, the once shackled media has gained a remarkable degree of freedom during the last decade; but freedom to report is just the beginning: beyond that are issues such as media plurality, the power of media owners, the authenticity of reporting and the appetite of the public for responsible and serious journalism.

Uncompromising Media Need Positive Changes

By Sajjad Shaukat (http://kashmirwatch.com/)

Every one knows that besides facing multi-faceted problems like acute financial crisis, unemployment, so¬c¬ial inequities, lack of security, lack of sound educational base, least technological prowess, loadshading of electricity and gas in wake of continuous acts of terrorism, Pakistan is also coping with external intrigues which are posing serious challenges to the people as well as the country. In these terms, Pakistan is passing through the most testing time of its history.

Regrettably, our own ethical values, traditional customs and cultural norms are not only neglected, but are also being depicted as orthodox, extremist and outdated. Domestic media, educational institutions and governing elite appear to have forgotten the significance and undercurrents, associated with own core middle class and the ideals required to maintain social order.