ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: Media in South Asia have been invited to come on board to promote the ongoing peace efforts that would open up the South Asian region to progress.

“Media people should refrain from scuttling the peace process”, was the bottom-line of the executive summary of the South Asia Media Monitor, 2008, launched by South Asia Media Commission here on Monday.

The report, launched simultaneously in the capitals of eight South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, looks into professional competence of media people, the dangers they face during performance as well as the fault lines seen during the current year.

The report also documented the death of 22 journalists -- seven each in India and Pakistan and two each in Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka -- killed by non-state actors. Exposing the fault lines following the terror attack in Mumbai, the media, more especially the electronic media, was said to have played irresponsible role in fanning jingoist hype to advance the likelihood of clash between Pakistan and India.

The Indian electronic media channels recognised the danger and recommended a set of ethical norms.

Pakistani media was also asked to formulate a set of similar rules. “Not the sort of rules that the government is working at with media owners, in which the working journalists and the civil society have not been consulted. The rules should be drawn and enforced by the working journalists themselves,” it was mooted.

Speaking on the occasion, South Asia Media Commission’s secretary general, Najam Sethi, warned against the crisis democracy was facing in Pakistan and the dangers to its survival.

He said the era of professional editors was over. Media in Pakistan had been transferred to the corporate sector, in which the owner-editors had an eye on increasing viewers and adding to advertisement revenue. Thus, we see downsizing in the Media and reduction in advertisement revenue. Only a handful of channels would survive the economic depression the country was going through. “Only the fittest would survive in these bad times”. But he blamed the media hype about war was initiated by the Indian media and Pakistan only followed suit.’

However, SMC’s coordinator, Husain Naqi contested the point about lack of revenue in the electronic media. He observed that during the past two or three years they have made a killing through advertisements. The least they should do is provide good compensation and look after the working journalists, accepting the wage board award, which has been waiting to be implemented since nine years during which the cost of living had increased many folds.

Afzal Khan, Pakistan coordinator of the Monitor, chipped in with the remark, ‘the wage board had listed the bare minimum need of the working journalists.’

A PTV director, who said the electronic channels, should have uniform rules for recruitment and emoluments, described another fault line. The excessive sums being paid to some were being stolen from each other. Husain Naqi agreed and gave examples of anchors that were getting over 200,000 rupees.

He wished that the journalist federation looked into the formulation of a number of rules for mutual benefit of the working journalists. A woman journalist present in the audience complained that the Media report did not mention the neglect women journalists faced in the media.