'Provoking' anti-national sentiments: Pemra issues notices to four TV channels

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Friday issued notices to Dawn News, Dunya News, News One and Geo News for being irresponsible and provoking anti-national sentiments among viewers by sensitising events unnecessarily.
According to a Pemra press release, some of the talk shows and programmes of these channels were observed in violation of Section 20 of PEMRA Ordinance 2002 read with Rule 15 of Pemra Rules 2009 and clause (1) (d) (g) (h) of Code of Conduct set out in the Schedule-B of PEMRA Rules 2009.
After the PNS Mehran tragedy, it was being observed that some news channels were not realising their journalistic responsibility and ethics towards society, institutions and country. Some news channels even went overboard in maligning the role of security agencies, armed forces and state institutions.
For instance, one of these channels televised interview of an alleged eyewitness of PNS Mehran attack and created undue sensation and hype without even bothering to verify the facts and realising the grave repercussions that such irresponsible journalism could have on country. The eyewitness later proved fake.
No responsible media anywhere in the world undermines the repute, respect sovereignty or integrity of its nation, institutions or its forces or pass aspersions against them. Instead, media in the world safeguard their national and strategic interests.
Media in Pakistan has been given enormous freedom of expression and speech but there must be some line drawn between desirable and undesirable by media at their own. Media in Pakistan today has to understand their responsibility before it is too late. The PEMRA always upheld its policy of "Self Regulation" and will continue to do so. PEMRA is constantly engaged in consultative process with all its stakeholders to mitigate such occurrences which are not acceptable.