APNS Punjab Committee’s emergency meeting was held on Monday in a local hotel here headed by Chairman committee Mumtaz A. Tahir. In the meeting, government’s suggested advertising policy was rejected completely.
After the detailed discussion and pondering the policy was termed as a poison for the newspaper industry. The meeting suggested that all newspaper associations should work together to stop this policy and APNS and other journalist associations should form joint action committee for a joint goal.
The committee will work with collaboration of newspaper members associations and press clubs officials.
During the meeting, serious apprehension was expressed on the issue that ending the 25 percent quota of regional newspapers will result in unemployment of hundreds of workers and financial crunch for those papers.
Further, the meeting termed the government’s new authority to cancel or approve any advertisement project and increasing the authority of relevant departments as unfair because under this policy regional and small newspapers will not be able to function for long.
The meeting appealed from the APNS leadership to work for implementation of Punjab committee’s suggestions immediately. The attendees of the meeting also urged that all delayed payments should be given to the newspapers without any further delay and all advertising agencies should pay the dues of newspapers as soon as possible.
Former senior official of APNS, Jameel Athar expressed his surprise over government’s step to end the role of advertising agencies all together and giving authority of ads only to PID. He said that through this policy small papers will not be able to survive any longer.
Meanwhile, former APSN secretary general Umar Shami said that APNS should work on alternative policy.
Rehmat Ali Razi said that if government wants to bring a change in method of distribution of ads then it should hold dialogues with newspaper associations and take them into their trust.
Other speakers included Sajad Bukhar (Abb Takk), Bilal Mehmood (Nawa-e-Waqt), Syed Mumtaz Shah (Mashriq), Ibrar Mustafa (Wafaq), Shahid Mehmood (Tajarti Rehbar), Hamayun Tariq (Business Report), Tanveer Husssain Shah (City 42), Sadia Sharif (Jang), Awais Khushnood (Sahafat), Irfan Athar ( Daily Jurrat), Rao Amjad Iqbal (Har Lamha), Shehzad Ameen (Gulf News)) and Ali Arshad Inami (Commercial News)
