RMNP Television Journalism Seminar

Mubarakpur(Rural Pakistan).August 6>Former Federal Minister for Information & Broadcasting Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani has said that Pakistan is a relatively media -poor country due to low literacy and
significant poverty.The print and electronic media serve as a mirrorimage of the nation and provide the instant history of our daily lives.They create a pervasive impact, disproportionate to the level ofmedia poverty.Policy making and opinion making segments in both the official sector and in the civil society remain hyper sensitive to reportage and content of media.

These views were expressed by him while addressing Television Journalism Seminar in Mubarakpur last night which was organised by the Rural Media Network Pakistan(RMNP).It was chaired by President RMNP Ehsan Ahmed Sehar while the journalists hailing from RahimyarKhan City,AhmedpurEast city,and rural areas of Mubarakpur,Chanigoth,Khanqah Sharif and Uchsharif besides civil society activists,local leaders of mainstream political parties,nazimeens and Councillors were also present on this occasion.Senator Durrani added that in a country,where millions were not able to read and write Television is and would remain the most important medium of information and communication.Television had also the potential to be the most important media in Pakistan s’ efforts to develop and democratize. It was without question that this medium could most effectively increase people s’ access to and participation in the media,by extension,in the dialogue surrounding issues and
events of public concern,he maintained.Former Federal Minister cited the example of TV coverage of lawyers movement for the restoration of independent judiciary which changed the whole political scenario.He lauded the role of the Rural Media Network Pakistan(RMNP)for the capacity building of both print and electronic media journalists in rural Pakistan and termed its achievements as a amazing story.He said that RMNP efforts should be supported by both national and international professional organisations so it could expand its operations for both in media training and in the promotion of the freedom of expression in rural Pakistan where 65 percent population
was residing.He hoped that training manual in Urdu language provided by International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)would help TV correspondents based in small towns and rural areas in improving their coverage for their respective tv channels.Earlier President RMNP Ehsan Ahmed Sehar highlighted the RMNP activities duding last six years and told that RMNP was planning to set up a Media Training & Resource Centre in near future.He informed that RMNP programme aims at providing training to district correspondents who were in fact the backbone of the newspapers and media industry.The problem of lack of facilities in rural Pakistan was an obstacle in utilizing the
potential of these journalists most of whom were untrained and were unaware of media ethics.The power shift towards rural areas had made it essential to focus on community journalism which was why the RMNP
plans on taking new media trends to the doorsteps of local journalists based in rural areas,he concluded.General Secretary National Press Union Mazhar Rasheed and others spoke on media training and press freedom related issues and thanked RMNP for assisting rural journalists.Later on Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani gave Urdu

language TV Journalism training manual to thirteen journalists Rana Mohd Afzal,Farooq Ahmed (RahimyarKhan),Mazhar Rasheed,Mazhar Bukhar,Syed Mubashar Hassan(Mubarakpur)Ejaz Baloch(Khanqah Sharif),Shabbir Ahmed Qureshi,Mohd Suleman Farooqi(AhmedpurEast)Shahid Bashir Anjum,Abdul Saboor Langha(Chanigoth)and Mohd Akmal Sheikh,Doctor ZiaulHaq and Abdul Ghani Langha(Uchsharif).

Source: Reports