My latest article and an excerpt from it hereunder : "It is a fact that most countries around the world monitor foreign media takeovers or alliances, to ensure that national security is not compromised by foreign indoctrination. For instance in the US, foreign national are allowed to own a TV network.The same rule created difficulties for the Australian billionaire TV magnate Rupert Murdoch,who wanted to start his now famous right wing Fox TV Channel in the US.Thus in order to bypass the rule the billionaire applied for a US citizenship which he got and brought the Fox Channel to the US. Even starting a homegrown channel for broadcast on cable is difficult in the US if it doesn’t conform to the mainstream American values. This can be adjudged from the story of the Muslim TV network called Bridges TV which had to find 10,000 cable customers willing to subscribe to it before such a channel could be aired… Just recall, how strict the US is in monitoring and restricting their media from not airing or publishing issue which could compromise the national security or interest…In the past their former Ambassador to Pakistan,even went to the extent of going after the scalps of our media personnel’s for having voiced contents which in their opinion could possibly harm their interest and security!… Actually to be completely honest, I am quite perplexed with the foreign country’s leaders and media’s unusual focus on a developing country like our,Pakistan. A single death occurrence of a journalist,or a domestic violence and criminal incident etc, grabbed extraordinary attention from them. Whence on the contrary they remained completely aloof and oblivious of the 35,000 civilian lives and 10,000 security personnel’s martyrdom in Pakistan!… Don’t you feel that Pakistan should also have some laws and regulations which limit and deny such foreign acquisitions/interference in critical areas like oil companies, essential mineral resources and more importantly the media, thereby ensuring Pakistani media is free of foreign interests and solely dedicated to the welfare of the Pakistani nation? It is also important that our government take strict notice of such dole-outs which are designed to curtail the freedom of media in Pakistan ? .
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 18:54:58 +0000