Pakistan Television Channels are owned by rich individuals and require support of government advertisements to fund them. The first part of the problem wouldn’t be that hard to fix, a simple rule banning majority ownership of papers by individuals and certainly banning the owning of multiple papers. The second problem is systemic but a solution can be found by passage of legislation banning government advertisements from appearing in private TV channels.  Corruption in Pakistan media is so rampant that even foreign nations like US are spending 50 million dollars to buy off Pakistani media. The 50 million dollar largesse has started to take effect. Many popular channels have sent their anchors on pre-paid junkets to the the Islands of Hawaii, the most expensive and luxurious spot, where Americans go on vacation. These trips are sponsored by the US government and these Presstitutes are ushered by State Department officials.

What is a Presstitute?

Presstitute is a term coined by Gerald Celente and often used by independent journalists and writers in the alternative media in reference to journalists and talking heads in the mainstream media who give biased and predetermined views in favor of the governments and corporations, thus neglecting their fundamental duty of reporting news impartially. It is a portmanteau of press and prostitute.

 

This year the following journalists went on these brain washing junkets:

The 2013 Pakistan-United States Journalists Exchange participants:

Pakistani Journalists

• Mr. Muhammad Imran Ahmed, Chief Reporter, Roznama (Daily) Dunya, Karachi
• Ms. Najia Ashar, Senior Anchor/Producer, Geo Television Network, Karachi
• Mr. Abdul Ghani Kakar, Chief Investigative Reporter, Daily Awam, Quetta, Balochistan
• Mr. Nisar Ali Khokhar, Special Correspondent, KTN News TV, Hyderabad
• Mr. Ikram Ullah Moomand, Editor-in-Charge, Editorial Page, Daily AAJ Urdu, Peshawar
• Ms. Sadia Nasir, Reporter, Pakistan Television (PTV), Current Affairs Department, Islamabad
• Ms. Shumaila Noreen, Reporter/Sub-editor, Associated Press Pakistan, Islamabad
• Mr. Shahid Hameed Rind, Bureau Chief, ARY News, Quetta
• Mr. Muhammad Salman, Staff Reporter, Daily Nawa-i-Waqt, Peshawar
• Mr. Pervaiz Shaukat, Senior Reporter, Daily Jang, and President, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Islamabad
• Ms. Sana Saif Tirmazee, Reporter, Dawnnews TV, Lahore

Pakistan’s media are addicted to money. The are serving foreign masters ranging from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, USA, and yes, even India. Pakistani  Journalists spend months under the Aman Ki Asha Trojan Horse in Delhi and other Indian cities. On their return, they start singing the tunes, pretty similar to those of Bal Thackeray. The only way to really make papers serve the people is to make them funded solely by the people, you know he who pays the piper call the tune and all that. The problem is though without advertisements papers would be too expensive for most people so alternate sources for funding through foundations and independent commission headed by retired members of the Judiciary dole out government grants to media houses.   Of course we can’t have a situation where the government decides which papers get what money; that situation would be worse than what we have now, but we could have every registered voter receive an equal amount of media vouchers which he or she could use to buy the paper of their choice or allocate amounts from the vouchers to fund media channels.

If you think about it this system would have many advantages; with advertising banned and with only members of the public being able to distribute the vouchers (and possibly pay) the public alone would be the only piper calling the tune.

Of course the taxpayer taking on the funding of media would be a burden but if we saw it as an investment in democracy then it would be definitely worth it; we could even set the funding as a fixed percentage of the GDP so it couldn’t be played around with by governments. With this system the whole range of the public’s views would be represented from left to right, from conservative to liberal and I’d bet the dividend from such a free press routing out corruption and misgovernance would more than pay for itself.