KARACHI: Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) President Arif Nizami, Senior Vice President Imtinan Shahid and Secretary General Dr Jabbar Khattak have welcomed Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry’s announcement regarding clearance of government advertisement dues of the newspapers.
“Due to the non-payment of dues, newspaper organisations had fallen into decrepitude and journalists as well as countless other media workers were feeling the crunch of economic instability,” they said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
They expressed hope that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting would do away with the non-equitable distribution of advertisements and provide medium, small and local newspapers with their permissible share.
They also said the state helps organisations for economic development, and so, the government has to play its due role to bail the small, medium and local newspapers as well as the country’s print media out of the crisis.
It merits a mention here that Fawad Chaudhry on Monday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan had issued directives for the immediate release of outstanding dues of all media houses.
In a video statement, Fawad had said the decision regarding outstanding dues would have positive impacts on the media industry and help stop sacking of employees by the owners.
“Previous regimes used advertisements as a political tool but the incumbent government has no such intentions. A merit-based policy is being formulated to end the government’s control over the release of official advertisements,” he had added.
