News agencies in Pakistan
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Before the partition of India, the areas constituting Pakistan did not have any news agency, but Associated Press of India and United Press of India had their local offices in the area. These offices became the nucleus for Pakistani news agencies.
The three national news agencies in Pakistan which sprang up after partition, are:
- Associated Press of Pakistan (APP)
- Pakistan press association, which was later, renamed as Pakistan Press International (PPI)
- United press of Pakistan (UPP)
Due to the computerization, many new news agencies have come into existence during the past decade. Examples of these news agencies are: Independent News Pakistan (INP), News network international (NNI), SANA (South Asian News Agency), and Online News International (ONI). But these agencies will take time in order to be considered as credible and authentic as APP and PPI.
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[edit] Associated Press of Pakistan
[edit] Pakistan Press International (PPI)
Pakistan Press International (PPI), was founded in June 1956 as Pakistan Press Association. The name was changed in 1968.
It was started by Mr. Muzzam Ali; then Chief Editor of APP. the agency’s main objective was to provide competition to APP whose monopoly has led to deterioration in the standard of news collection and distribution. It began its service by hand, only in Karachi.
PPA also built up a network of correspondents in the smaller cities and towns in Pakistan. This was in contrast to APP, which was content with coverage in a few large cities. For foreign news the agency signed up with the AFP in 1957, and a year later became the first Asian partner of DPA. PPA also posted a correspondent in the Middle East, an area of special interest to Pakistani newspapers.
In 1958, the agency installed the teleprinters in the offices of its clients. By 1960, PPI had subscriber in all the major newspapers centers of Pakistan, namely Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Dacca.
[edit] Effects of APP’s takeover on PPI
The take over of APP also threatened the existence of PPA as questions were raised as to whether it was necessary to have two news agencies. The government even considered the idea of merging PPA and APP, but the idea failed due to the immense opposition from the news papers.
The greatest problem that hinders PPI was the government’s policies that restricted press freedom. Ayub’s regime, which was curbing press freedom, was especially harmful to PPA, as independent political coverage was one of the reasons why newspapers subscribe to its service.
[edit] Growth
The agency launched a photo service in 1965, just before the war between India and Pakistan. The next year PPI started National Feature Service, which provided features for the editorial pages and magazine sections of the newspapers. These were distributed not only to Pakistani newspapers but to the English language papers in the Middle East. It also entered in the field of magazine publishing. It published fortnightly Pakistan Courier, the monthly Economic Outlook, and the Urdu weekly Paiman.
[edit] Structure of PPI
[edit] Editorial operation
PPI has its head office in Karachi and bureau in Islamabad, the federal capitaland the four provincial capitals---Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta and recently developing a bureau office in Hyderabad.
Its editorial function is similar to that of a newspaper. But unlike APP the operation of PPI are decentralized and news are sent directly by originating bureau to subscribers without having to go through the head office. Because of decentralization, PPI’s news service is generally faster than APP.
[edit] Communication networks
The main circuit of PPI inter bureau traffic was routed along the Karachi- Lahore- Islamabad Lahore- Karachi circuit. Lahore was the hub of the PPI communication networks. But now time has changed. These telegraph systems have been replaced by computer. The subscribers are now directly fed either through email.
[edit] Staff
According to an estimate there are approximately 300 to 350 staff members in PPI which include both journalists and non-media staff. It has a large network of correspondents and stringers, known as district correspondents throughout Pakistan.
[edit] Ownership & Finances
PPI is the private joint stock company that runs on a non-profit basis. It is a fundamental policy of PPI that shareholders are not paid any dividends or profits, and directors are not paid emoluments in any form. PPI is headed by Mr. Owais Aslam Ali who took charge as Chairman and CEO in 1998.
[edit] Subscribers
At this point of time, there are over 150 newspapers, radio and television channels that are the subscribers of PPI. The subscription rate varies depending on size and financial strength of the client. The most prominent subscribers are: Dawn, The Nation, The News, Daily Times, Jung and Naw-e-waqt.
[edit] Services provided by PPI
[edit] News services
1. Official news
PPI make extensive use of government handouts. In the past the PPI had installed teleprinters in the office of PID (federal Press information department) to ensure rapid dispatch of government handouts to the Islamabad bureau, where those suitable for use were selected and rewritten before being included in the national news service. Now teleprinters have been replaced by computers.
2. Political news
The main reason for the establishment of PPI was the biased political coverage of APP which always served as a mouth piece to the government, ignoring cultural, economic and other aspects of national life as well. PPI opened these avenues, and even the period of authoritarian rule continued to cover the activities of all parties, including those in the opposition. By constantly following this policy, the agency has established the credibility of its coverage of politics, which Bryin (1983: 368) aptly described as the “life blood of the Pakistani press.”
3. District news
PPI has placed great importance on the developing its district service. Today, with over 250 district correspondents throughout the country, PPI is an important source of news from the rural areas for the Pakistani media. It provides not only the facilities such as computers to its correspondents but also look forward to train them.
[edit] Photo service
PPI has re-started its photo service from last year as it was discontinued in 1975 by the PPP-nominated management.
[edit] Feature service
PPI relaunched its feature service in 1987. The service covers specific subjects such as environment, arts, women and development issues. In 1990, PPI entered into co-syndication agreement with the Panos institute to produce features on the environment and development issues, for Urdu and Sindhi newspapers. These features are not only distributed to newspapers in Pakistan but also to Urdu and Sindhi publications in other countries. Because of the paucity of material on these subjects, the feature service established itself within short time.
[edit] Urdu service
PPI started its Urdu service in 1989. In the beginning it selected 40 to 50 selected items translated into Urdu and delivered twice daily by the messengers to newspapers in Karachi. This service is still working in its full flash form.
[edit] United Press of Pakistan
United Press of Pakistan came into existence in December 1949. Mr. Qutubuddin Aziz as a private limited company founded it. However for long time, the agency has merely existed on paper and just about manages to get the small subsidies marked for it by the central and provisional governments. Currently, it is managed by Mehmood ul Aziz who is the managing director.
According to the MD of UPP, “the revenues generated by government subsides forces an organizations to become the mouth piece of government. As UPP wishes to enjoy the independence of action and freedom of organization, it doesn’t accept subsidies to the government.”
It is providing news either by fax, telephone and email. Their service comprises of few national items plus some items lifted from Indian and Middle Eastern newspapers. There are total 25 subscribers of this agency including the Jung group and the Naw-e-waqt group. The two leading papers Business Recorder and Daily News are also its subscribers.
The basic motives of UPP are:
- To highlight public grievances and ways to remedy these grievances.
- To highlight the short comings part of official agencies
- To focus attention on the matter that concern the public.
[edit] Online International News Network
This is Pakistan's first bilingual news and photo wire service, dedicated to issues that are neglected by the mainstream media. It focuses on national and global processes affecting the economic, social and political development of the people of Pakistan in particular and the region in general and claims to disseminate genuine as well as useful information to the nation and the people across the globe. Mr. Mohsin Baig who has been a journalist in his own right and now Chief Executive Online initiated this project in January 1999. Mr. Mohsin Baig is known for being an extoritionist, which is a very common thing in the jounrnalism of Pakistan. He is known to have brought his way through by blackmailing, which is quite evident from the fact that he is wanted in many cases registered all over Pakistan but still is able to run a News Agency as CEO. He himself is a very wealthy man, with his wealth scattered all over Pakistan and internationally in Dubai. Online deems its financial independence to be the bedrock of its policy independence. A single-owner proposition from day one, the organization has not been able to keep its hands clean of government grant, party contribution, or philanthropic endowment, by buying favours out, in return for favoured reporting.
[edit] Services
After NNI, Online is the second Pakistani news agency operating English, Urdu and Arabic news services simultaneously along with comprehensive national and international photo coverage. Whereas, NNI lost its pace and had to leave Arabic and photo-services.
[edit] Editorial functions
Online has its Central office in New York and head office in Islamabad. It has its bureaus at each provincial headquarters in Pakistan besides some major cities including Muzaffarabad, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, and Multan. Each bureau is headed by senior and professional journalists.
[edit] Staff
Reporting teams comprise more than 450 correspondents, representing Online in almost every district and tehsil headquarter of the country. Online has its correspondents in important world capitals and major cities including Washington, New York, Koeln (Germany), Moscow, Tokyo, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Cairo, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait covering events round-the-clock.
[edit] Subscribing Newspapers
There are more or less 25 national subscribers of online international news network.
Committed to keep readers updated as the events unfold, within one month of its launch, PakTribune has been selected by one of the largest news resources – Google News Resource and moreover.com. Through news ticker services, PakTribune is providing news updates to scores of websites and news networks.
[edit] Role of international news agencies in Pakistan
The international news agencies are global in reach, and knit the world together. But none of the world agencies in fact distributes news in every country of the world, though technically they could supply their services to all newspapers and broadcasting stations, which wished to subscribe to them.
The worlds over these news agencies operate through one or more domestic news agencies under an agreement. The national news agencies receive the world news from these news agencies via satellite, and without distorting they edit them in keeping with their countries’ national interests and distribute to newspapers and other media.
This system prevailed in Pakistan till mid-1980s. But today Pakistan is an exception in the world where world agencies operate and feed the newspapers and other media and business houses directly! This detrimental unique position has earned through the courtesy of media managers in the Ministry of information.
The modern world’s practice of collecting and distributing news across the globe is only about hundred years old and was initiated by news agencies of the United States and the great imperial powers, Britain and France. Today, the world agencies – the Associated Press and the United Press International (U.S.), Reuters (Britain), and Agence France Press (France)—are still the principal conduits of transnational news, although they and other media have been transformed by the news space-age technology.
[edit] Reuters in Pakistan
Until mid 80’s Reuters as an international news agency operated in Pakistan through APP as agreed and in consonance with longstanding practice the world over. Reuters, through head quarters in London, function there through local news agency –associated press. Towards the end of 80s Reuters succeeded in clinching an unprecedented agreement incorporating its right to operate independently in Pakistan. The inclusion of provision was effected with an apparent knowledge of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the only controlling authority.
Amazingly the provision clinched by Reuters was never debated in APP editorial. The provision allowed Reuters to distribute, without even any share payment, “all services of economic and financial news and information indirectly to subscribers in Pakistan and collect revenue in respect of such other services.”
As the matter came to notice of the APP editorial, a series of summaries prepared and sent to the Ministry concerned urging to seek rescinding the damage provision and encourage Reuters to operate Via APP as usual within the territory of Islamic republic of Pakistan. The ministry, instead of acting timely on APP calls maintained an apparent mysterious acquiescence to-date.
Taking cue from Reuter’s success story in Pakistan, AFP has also bargained supply of its services to media and commercial houses directly.
[edit] References
[edit] Interviews
- MR Fazal Qureshi, Chief Editor in PPI
- Jalil Ahmed, worked in APP for 15 years
- Mehmood ul Aziz, MD of UPP
- Mr. Owais aslam, CEO of PPI
- Mr. Farooq Moin, Editor, PPI New Agency
- Mr. Naseer Ajaz, Bureau Chief, Karachi, PPI
[edit] Thesis consulted
- The Associate press of Pakistan—a report for UNESCO,1986
- Pakistan’s national news agencies :Their Evolution and operation by Owais Aslam Ali, 1992
[edit] Papers Consulted
- Dr. Shamsuddin ,The news flow
- Jalil Ahmed, the news agencies
- Mohammed Mumtaz, Brief on APP,AUGUT 7,1992
- Dr. Mukthar Zaman , Flow of information in south Asian countries
- Twenty Years of Pakistan 1947-67, Government Publication
- William A. Hachten, The World New Prism, The Lowa State University Press, AMES, Lowa 1981
