PFUJ calls for end to Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists
November 02, 2025: PFUJ urges Pakistan’s federal and provincial governments to end Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists and ensure their safety and press freedom.
JournalismPakistan.com | Published 3 years ago | Daud Malik
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ISLAMABAD—Who is a journalist? These days it seems everyone is. With technology, we have entered the era of citizen journalism, where electronic media encourages viewers to send their videos on a particular issue. The journalists managing online channels seem to mock the TV channels, covering events with a mobile phone and reaching their followers.
However, the question persists who is a journalist? In a politically polarized society like ours, we often hear journalists questioned about their journalistic credentials. With the advent of electronic media, this question has been asked repeatedly. Pakistan witnessed a surge in journalists, almost all of them tagged with the moniker—senior.
The Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals Act 2021 tries to answer the question. In the section of definitions, the law defines a journalist as "any person who is professionally or regularly engaged by a newspaper, magazine, news website, or other news broadcast medium (whether online or offline)…" This is quite a broad definition and perhaps includes everybody. It goes on to define freelancers. A freelance journalist is "any person with a substantial track record of freelancing for at least three years for any newspaper, magazine, news website, or other news broadcast medium."
The law also introduces the category of media professionals. A media professional is "any other person regularly or professionally engaged in the collection, processing, and dissemination of information to the public via any means of mass communication, including cameraperson and photographers, technical support staff, drivers and interpreters, editors, translators, publishers, broadcasters, printers and distributors."
It defines the non-journalist in the administrative context. "A person who is employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity in a media organization, or is being employed there in a supervisory capacity…"
The use of technology has changed the face of journalism and raised the question of who is a journalist. What defines a journalist— the privilege or the work? Tom Rosenstiel, an American author, and journalist thinks journalism is about action and not affiliation. "You can't say, 'I'm a journalist, here's my press pass. You have to say, 'I'm a journalist. Here's my work'." But others see journalists in a more formal role—the one who collects information to disseminate it.
November 02, 2025: PFUJ urges Pakistan’s federal and provincial governments to end Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists and ensure their safety and press freedom.
November 02, 2025: Impunity for crimes against journalists deepens worldwide as Pakistan reports a 60 percent surge in attacks and weak enforcement of safety laws.
November 01, 2025: Pakistan Press Foundation reports 137 attacks on journalists in 2025, highlighting rising threats, legal harassment, and censorship on the International Day to End Impunity.
November 01, 2025: A viral Samaa TV clip featuring MNA Sher Afzal Marwat’s crude remarks and Talat Hussain’s laughter raises questions about the declining ethics of Pakistani television.
October 31, 2025: Police foiled a plot to kill DawnNewsTV journalist Tahir Naseer in Rawalpindi after arresting suspects hired for Rs200,000. Naseer says threats followed his reporting.
October 31, 2025: CPJ calls on Pakistan to bring Imtiaz Mir’s killers to justice after the journalist was allegedly murdered by a banned militant group in Karachi.
October 30, 2025: The PFUJ has condemned a fabricated drug case against journalist Matiullah Jan, calling it an attempt to silence him and urging authorities to quash the charges immediately.
October 30, 2025: NewsOne TV remains on air but faces mass layoffs and delayed salaries, exposing Pakistan’s worsening media crisis and financial instability.
November 02, 2025 Independent outlet All About Macau to halt print and online operations amid rising pressure, financial strain, and legal threats, sparking press freedom concerns in the city.
November 01, 2025 Belarus court jails journalist Siarhei Chabotska for extremism and defaming the president, highlighting Minsk’s ongoing crackdown on press freedom.
November 01, 2025 Mexican journalist Miguel Angel Beltran was found murdered in Durango. CPJ urges authorities to ensure justice amid rising violence against journalists in Mexico.
November 01, 2025 UNESCO survey finds one-third of media lawyers cannot effectively defend journalists due to threats, limited resources, and lack of specialization.
October 31, 2025 Radio Free Asia, a US government-funded broadcaster covering tightly controlled Asian media environments, has suspended all news operations after federal funding dried up.