Effective controls in place at PTV to block speculative information: minister

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 11 January 2017

The Senate informed that PTV has established a robust mechanism to block speculative information. This includes editorial boards for oversight of news content.

Summary

ISLAMABAD - The Senate was informed Wednesday that an effective check and control mechanism is in place to block dissemination of unconfirmed, unauthentic and speculative information on PTV News.

“Editorial boards have been established for Current Affairs Programs and News…to check any shade of information that breeds suspicion, uncertainty and chaos,” Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb told the upper house during the question hour.

She was responding to a question by Senator Nuzhat Sadiq about “any mechanism wherein the government TV channels broadcast corrections or apologies on their respective channels, in case their reports, status are proved false…”

Terming PTV News a forerunner in the development of free but responsible media, the state minister said its check and control mechanism include offices of the Controller Current Affairs, Deputy Controller Current Affairs, Head of Current Affairs and Editorial Board.

While answering another question about postings in PTV and Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) in the last five years, she said in PTV no regular appointment has been made during the said period. However, she added that to meet day to day operational requirements, services of 983 incumbents have been hired/engaged on contract/temporary basis in the last five years.

 In PBC, the minister said 1187 persons have been appointed against various posts in the past five years.

KEY POINTS:

• Effective controls set to block unverified information on PTV News.
• Editorial boards established for Current Affairs Programs.
• Over 900 temporary staff hired to meet operational needs at PTV.
• No regular appointments made at PTV in last five years.
• 1178 persons appointed in Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation in the past five years.