Caretaker Prime Ministers Anwarul Haq Kakar has been squarely condemned by both the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors and the All-Pakistan Newspaper Society for his dillydallying about the payment by the government of Rs 2 billion in dues, and his brash statement that the newspaper industry had an incorrect business model, and in which the newspapers expect to be subsidized. If anything, the subsidy is on the newspapers’ side, for the government gets a rate much lower than the private sector. The delays by the government in making payments are also a form of subsidy to the government.
Mr Kakar should put his money where his mouth is, and reorganize the system of government advertising. First, he should pay for advertising space already bought in the newspapers, and then stop all advertising. If he prefers, the government could pay the full cost of advertising. Mr Kakar has come only in a caretaker role, or else he would have known that the government’s purchase and procurement rules require the government to advertise at virtually every stage of the process. It is not only procurements, but contracts and recruitments which oblige the government to advertise. If the government can carry out its activities without advertising, it should try. Mr Kakar would find that even a caretaker government would not be able to function without advertising. Vanity ads, where a government boasts about its achievements, actually are only a small part of the total. Mr Kakar would also be well-advised to avoid mixing up print and electronic media, as he did at the presser where he attacked the newspaper industry’s business model. He might have quoted the example of The Guardian, but he should remember that the newspaper industry is facing a global crisis, caused by the spread of the Internet. It is because of that crisis that newspapers find themselves unable to carry the government any more, and wanting the money which the government owes, for advertising space it has already used.
Instead, the government has failed to solve the more basic issue of safety. A Freedom Network report, published just ahead of the international day against impunity against journalists on November 2, notes that the state has increased violence against them, including kidnapping, physical assaults and serious legal cases, including unproven charges of sedition, treason and electronic crimes. As a newspaper which is even now facing charges of criminal defamation, we can only endorse this.
