Pakistan Press International

 

Pakistan Press International (PPI) was founded in June 1956 as Pakistan Press Association. The name was changed in 1968. It was first started by Mr. Muzzam Ali; the Chief Editor of APP. The agency’s main objective was to provide competition to APP whose monopoly has led to deterioration in the standard of news collection and distribution. It began its service by hand, only in Karachi. PPA also built up a network of correspondents in the smaller cities and towns in Pakistan. This was in contrast to APP, which was content with coverage in a few large cities. For foreign news the agency signed up with the AFP in 1957, and a year later became the first Asian partner of DPA. PPA also posted a correspondent in the Middle East, an area of special interest to Pakistani newspapers. In 1958, the agency installed the teleprinters in the offices of its clients. By 1960, PPI had subscriber in all the major newspapers centers of Pakistan, namely Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Dacca.

Effects of APP’s take over on PPI

The take over of App also threatened the existence of PPA as questions were raised as to whether it was necessary to have two news agencies. The government even considered the Idea of merging PPA and APP, but the idea failed due to the immense opposition from the news papers.

The greatest problem that hinders PPI was the government’s policies that restricted press freedom. Ayub’s regime, which was curbing press freedom on one hand, was especially harmful to PPA, as independent political coverage was one of the reasons why newspapers subscribe to its service.

Growth

The agency launched a photo service in 1965, just before the war between India and Pakistan. The next year PPI started National feature service, which provided features for the editorial pages magazine sections of the newspapers. These were distributed not only to Pakistani newspapers but to the English papers in the Middle East.

In 1967, PPA established the Pakistan Press Foundation, which organized seminars, lectures and courses on different aspects of journalism, and in 1969, started a school of photography. It also entered the field of magazine publishing. It published the fortnightly Pakistan Courier, the monthly Economic Outlook, and the Urdu weekly Paiman.ok

STRUCTURE OF PPI

Editorial operation

PPI has its head office in Karachi and bureau in Islamabad, the federal capital; Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir (this bureau is temporarily not working because of the disastrous earthquake that happened in 2005); and the four provincial capitals---Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta and recently developing a head quarter in Hyderabad.

Its editorial function is similar to that of a news paper. But unlike APP the operation of PPI are decentralized and news are sent directly by originating bureau to subscribers without having to go through the head office. If the story is considered to be lacking in authenticity or has legal implications, it can be withdrawn by the head office, but this happens only rarely. Because of decentralization, PPI’s news service is much faster than APP.

Communication networks

The main circuit of PPI inter bureau traffic was routed along the Karachi- Lahore- Islamabad Lahore- Karachi circuit. Lahore was the hub of the PPI communication networks. But now time has changed. These telegraph systems have been replaced by printers attached to the telephone and computer. The subscribers are now directly fed either through email, fax (for the papers who do not have computers) or by printers attached to the telephones. PPI send news to its subscribers on the daily basis.

PPI contains approximately 57 computers in the news rooms including all the bureaus in Pakistan and has provided computers in seven districts including Larkana, Multan, and Sukkur.

Staff

According to an estimate there are approximately 300 to 350 staff members in PPI which include both journalists and non-media staff. It has a very wide network of correspondents and stringers, known as district correspondents through out Pakistan.Also founder of this agency was one of the nice man MR.K.B.SHAIKH (Late)He was Teleprinter Engineer.,

Ownership & Finances

PPI is the private joint stock company that runs on s non profit making basis. It is a fundamental policy of PPI that shareholders are not paid any dividends or profits, and nonworking directors are not paid emoluments in any form. PPI is headed by Mr. Owais Aslam Ali who took charge as CEO in 1998.

PPI generates about 25% of it revenues from government and the rest from the subscription of newspapers, electronic media, non media organizations and foreign agencies.

Subscribers

At this point of time, there are nearly about 150 newspapers that are the subscribers of PPI. The subscription rate varies from paper to paper, depending on its size and financial strength. Smaller newspapers that cannot afford the PPI services can collect the news from PPI offices at even lower rates. The most prominent subscribers are: “Dawn, the nation, the news, Daily times, and Frontier post, Jung, Naw-e-waqt, Aawam, Amn, Hilal-e-Pakistan and Ibrat.”

SERVICES PROVIDED BY PPI News services

Official news

PPI make extensive use of government handouts. In the past the PPI had installed teleprinters in the office of PID (federal Press information department) to ensure rapid dispatch of government handouts to the Islamabad bureau, where those suitable for use were selected and rewritten before being included in the national news service. Now teleprinters have been replaced by computers therefore the system of dispatching official news to the subscribers takes few seconds.

Political news

The main reason for the establishment of PPI was the biased political coverage of APP which always served as a mouth piece to the government, ignoring cultural, economic and other aspects of national life as well. PPI opened these avenues, and even the period of authoritarian rule continued to cover the activities of all parties, including those in the opposition. By constantly following this policy, the agency has established the credibility of its coverage of politics, which Bryin (1983: 368) aptly described as the “life blood of the Pakistani press.”

District news

PPI has placed great importance on the developing its district service. Today, with over 250 district correspondents throughout the country, PPI is the single largest source of news from the rural areas for the Pakistani media. It provides not only the facilities such as computers to its correspondents but also look forward to train them and strengthen the position of journalism in these districts.

Foreign Service

Until early seventies, PPI was linked with AP and AFP but because of hostility with Z.A Bhutto, the government maneuvered the termination of links between PPI and the world agencies. For this reason APP has become the main source of international news in Pakistani media. But now it has links with AFP and DPA as the main source of international news and in addition to this it has agreements ANSA, Jiji Press, UNI, Yon hap, and a number of Eastern European and third world agencies. It is also a member of OANA, and also participates in the Asian News Networks (ANN), in its news exchange program.

PPI has an office in London and assign senior staff members to cover overseas visits of Presidents and Prime ministers of Pakistan.

Photo service

PPI has re-started its photo service from last year as it was discontinued in 1975 by the PPP-nominated management.

Feature service

PPI relaunched its feature service in 1987. The service covers specific subjects such as environment, arts, women and development issues. In 1990, PPI entered into co-syndication agreement with the Panos institute to produce features on the environment and development issues, for Urdu and Sindhi newspapers. These features are not only distributed to newspapers in Pakistan but also to Urdu and Sindhi publications in other countries. Because of the paucity of material on these subjects, the feature service established itself within short time.

Urdu service

PPI started its Urdu service in 1989. In the beginning it selected 40 to 50 selected items translated into Urdu and delivered twice daily by the messengers to newspapers in Karachi. This service is still working in its full flash form. Even PPI has expanded its service in Sindhi and Guajarati language.

Journalists worked for PPI

There are a number of journalists working on key positions in various institutions who have worked with the PPI. Besides, the PPI groomed many young journalists, who are working on different positions in print and electronic media

• Salahuddin Haider
• Javed Bukhari
• Shamim-ur-Rehman
• Syed Wajahat Ali
• Shahid Mansoor
• Azizullah Sharif
• Waheed Khan
• Zaheer Ahmed Khan
• Maqbool Ahmed
• Khurram Baig
• Fasahat Mohiuddin
• Arshad Majeed Shamsi
• Saeed Azhar
• Shahid Shehzad
• Shezad Ali
• Arman Sabir
• Fazal Mehmood
• Arshad Hussain
• Amir Latif
• Azfar-ul-Ashfaq
• Imran Ghori

PPI AND DIFFERENT GOVERNMENTS

Bhutto’s regime

PPI gave fair coverage to all political parties irrespective of their ideological orientation. This independence was maintained despite heavy pressure from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. As PPI was not prepared to yield these pressures, Bhutto was deeply resented. He expressed his annoyance not only privately, but also in public. He attacked PPI by making wild allegations against the agency, which drew a strong response from Aslam Ali, the general manager of PPI.

On assuming power in 1971, the PPP became even more aggressive. They set out to destroy PPI through various coercive measures. To finally weaken the agency, it ordered the suspension of the agency’s service to the government controlled radio, television, and the NPT papers.

Bhutto and accused of being hostile to his government twice summoned Muazzam Ali. When Muazzam Ali went on a visit to England in December 1973, he was advised by his friends not to return to Pakistan as the government decided to persecute him. Then Aslam Ali, Brother Muazzam Ali, took over the agency and became the managing Director of PPI.

Having failed to achieve the demise of PPI through financial strangulation, Bhutto ordered that the ownership of the agency be transferred. In March 1975, the CM of Sindh, Ghulam Mustafa jatoi, directed Aslam Ali to transfer the shares of the agency to Latif Ibrahim Jamal, a business man and a member of PPP. Faced with the threat of his family, Aslam Ali transferred the shares of the agency to the PPP nominee on April 11, 1975.

The biggest damage of this transfer of ownership to PPI was the destruction of the agency’s independence. According to GOP: for …APP and PPI, opposition news became almost a taboo. They took notice of opposition only to malign it, as an exercise in character-assassination.

Zia ul-Haq regime

Immediately after the fall of Bhutto regime, Aslam Ali made an application to the martial law authorities for the return of PPI, as the transfer was under duress. The martial law authorities found the transfer illegal and returned the agency to its original owners. The original owners regained control of PPI in November 1977. The new board of directors elected Muazzam Ali as the president and Aslam Ali as the chairman.

The original team reorganized the agency and re-established a policy of giving political coverage, including of course, PPP. The new machines replaced the ageing teleprinters that had been ignored by the previous management. The management improved the agency’s news service, relaunched the feature service and the monthly magazine Economic Outlook, and commenced Urdu and Sindhi Language news and feature services. The agency revived the Pakistan Press foundation in 1989, but before it could become operational, the agency was once again in crisis by the action of Benazir Bhutto.

Benazir Bhutto

The martial law culminated in Benazir Bhutto becoming the prime minister on December 1, 1988. She continued with her father’s obsession with the destruction of PPI.

The new government abruptly cancelled the government’s subscription to PPI’s news service, on July 1, 1989 which drew strong criticism from political parties, newspapers, and national and international media organizations. Columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee (1989) asked in exasperation:

“Why …is the second PPI government so keen to repeat the mistakes of the first and once again mess up matters? The first lot forced the majority shareholders to sell out to a party henchman and thus strangulated the agency’s freedom. The status quo was restored after the first Prime Minister Bhutto fell. Now the second lot seems hell bent on liquidating the agency all together.”

Benazir’s government privately made it clear to the PPI management that cancellation of the subscription was just the first step, and more actions against the agency would soon follow. However, the information minister, Javeed Jabar, attempted to justify government’s action as a cost cutting measure.

The government was forced to rethink its decision in the after math of no-confidence motion, tabled in the national assembly in November 1989. Foreseeing its own downfall, the PPP once again realized the importance of PPI, and in May 1990, it restarted the government’s subscription.

Three months later, the president dismissed the PP government on charges of corruption. The pp, then in opposition, once again benefited from the independence of PPI.

Musharraf’s era

The present government, being clever enough, is following a free media policy and allowed the opening of private radio and television channels in the country. All the past governments were afraid of free flow of information and always remained intolerant towards the media. For this reason always regulated restricted policies for the press freedom.

Musharaf’s government has not yet threatened PPI for its independent coverage of news, but recently a veteran journalist and Resident Editor/Bureau Chief of PPI Islamabad, Malik Mohammad Ismail Khan (1953-2006), was brutally murdered in Islamabad (the Federal Capital of Pakistan), on the night of 31st October 2006 under mysterious circumstances. Malik Ismail served 30 years as a journalist and he was an honest, upright, fearless and a conscientious journalist. He was a thorough jentleman who always worked for the positive image of independent journalism in Pakistan. He was widely respected in the community of journalists for his qualities of professionalism and character. It is terribly sad that even government officials have claimed that they will find his murderers very soon but up until now the murderers are still at large.

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