Grievances of media outlets against ads allocation to be redressed

LAHORE: First meeting of Advertisements Complaints Redressal Committee (ACRC) was held here with Director General PID Lahore Shafqat Abbas in the chair. Others who attended the meeting included Deputy General Advertisements Islamabad who was in person whereas the Directors General PID Karachi and Peshawer as well as Director Home Publicity Islamabad attended the meeting through zoom.

While speaking to the participants, the Chairman said that every possible effort would be made to address the grievances of the complainants from national and regional newspapers. Terms of the Reference (TORs) were also drafted and it was decided that complaints will be lodged through prescribed format which will be available online.

During the deliberations, it was reiterated that the committee will work with the media representative bodies and regular publications will be treated on priority.

The committee expressed its resolve to evolve mechanism to identify the dummy publication and their consequent removal from the central media list. It was also observed that few dummy publications have started their propaganda through social media by casting doubts even before the committee has started its work.

The committee finalized the first draft and shared with its members for further deliberations before making it public.

The meeting ended after expressing gratitude to All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE), and Pakistan Federation of Union of Journalists (PFUJ), Columnists, veteran journalists and other journalists Organisations who have assured full support to these efforts of Press Information Department.

Source: Pakistan Today