Saturday, November 30, 2013

Media Credibility Index launched in Pakistan

Posted by Mudabbir Maajid in Featured, Press Releases | 0 comments

Media Credibility Index launched in Pakistan.

Media Credibility Index aims to assess current affairs programming; ranking content and delivery mechanisms across six pillars of credibility.

The CredibilityLab at Mishal Pakistan launched the Media Credibility Index (MCI), an initiative started in January 2013 in collaboration with Pakistan Coalition for Ethical Journalism, leading research and academic institutions, and media practitioners. The launch ceremony was held in Islamabad where prominent media professionals, representatives of regulatory bodies, media development organizations and members of the civil society participated. The Index focuses on the relative credibility and believability of various media channels through which content is created.

Addressing the participants, Founder and Director, Ethical Journalism Network, Aidan White said that launch of the Media Credibility Index is a landmark moment for media accountability in Pakistan. In a country where people are overwhelmed by a torrent of information on all sides, and where corruption lurks in all areas of public life, the greatest challenge facing journalists and media professionals is to produce information that is reliable, useful and above all truthful.

The MCI provides fundamentals for analyzing media discourse in the country. By using benchmarks provided by professionals at national and international level, the MCI provides an opportunity to examine how the news analysis and commentary of high profile news anchors contribute to better understanding of complex issues in Pakistan’s robust landscape of journalism and politics, he further added.

Speaking at on the occasion, Dr. Nazir Saeed, Federal Secretary for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage said, “Television has an overwhelming impact on peoples’ decision-making power. The significance of the Media Credibility Index is in its use and ability to highlight content that can empower both the newsmakers and the information seekers; enabling them to create an effective knowledge ecosystem in the country. MCI has the potential of becoming the source for an informed decision making tool in public policy debate. MCI will promote ethical content practices in the country, information that tells stories not just about the powerful, but also about the powerless, and not just about the life of the decision makers, but also about issues concerning the masses”.

“I feel proud of the fact that the Media Credibility Index has been launched in Pakistan and can be a benchmark for other countries in the world for promoting, balanced, ethical and fair journalism practices”, said Dr. Nazir Saeed.

Center for International Media Ethics (CIME) Ambassador for Pakistan, Puruesh Chaudhary said that the index has been developed after an extensive examination of media laws, ethical principals drafted by different media groups, compliance regulations formulated by regulatory bodies and journalistic organizations. The MCI will explore the state of media in Pakistan against six indicators and 20 sub-indices. The results are currently being published on a weekly basis on the Media Credibility Index website as well.

Senior journalist and founder, Pakistan Coalition for Ethical Journalism, Muhammad Ziauddin said that Mishal has incorporated more than thirty code of conducts, principles of ethical journalism, which include currently prevalent seven national code of conducts and twenty four international code of ethics from international regulatory bodies, which have been agreed upon across the globe. He further said, that the codes of ethics framed by the Pakistani media groups have also being included within the index, these entail Jang group’s Geo Asool, Dunya’s code of ethics, Express group’s journalism code of conduct and Dawn Group’s principles and code of conduct.

After reviewing the principles of journalism and codes of ethics for journalists; six media credibility indicators with 20 sub-indices have been developed in order to assess the media discourse and credibility of current affairs anchors in Pakistan. This extensive study entails thirty-five current affairs programming of the mainstream Pakistani news channels. The Credibility of the anchors and content discourse is being assessed on; Professional Competence, Ethics, Accuracy, Balance, Timeliness and Fairness.

Chief Executive Officer, Mishal Pakistan, Amir Jahangir said the CredibilityLab, through its activities will further strengthen the Triple Helix concept, which relies on three main ideas: (1) a more prominent role for the University in creating new though and research processes, bringing them on par with the Industry and Government that form the basis of a Knowledge Society; (2) a movement toward collaborative relationships among the three major institutional spheres, in which information and knowledge policy is increasingly an outcome of interaction rather than a prescription from the Government; (3) in addition to fulfilling their traditional functions, each institutional sphere also “takes the role of the ‘other’ performing new roles as well as their traditional function.

The CredibilityLab at Mishal will be publishing its research on the state of media and competitiveness in Pakistan in collaboration with its partners. The MCI research has been one of the few initiatives in Pakistan, where research work has been collaborated with eleven academic partners in the country, including University of the Punjab, International Islamic University, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Lahore College for Women University, University of Gujrat, Government College University Faisalabad, Islamia University Bhawalpur, University of Balouchistan, Greenwich University and Bharia University.

Mishal Pakistan is the partner institute of the Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Networks, World Economic Forum. Mishal assists the forum in creating the soft-data on Pakistan, identifying Pakistan’s competitiveness challenges. Mishal has also launched Pakistan’s first journalism awards “AGAHI Awards” on the framework designed jointly with the Center for International Media Ethics and UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators.

As a partner institute Mishal has been working closely with the World Economic Forum on measuring Pakistan’s performance on multiple international indices and reports i.e. Global Competitiveness Index, Global Gender Gap Index, Global Enabling Trade Index, Global Information Technology Report – Network Readiness Index, Financial Development Index and the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index.

For more information on the Media Credibility Index (MCI) please visit: www.mediacredibilityindex.com

Thursday, November 7, 2013

DANISH MINISTER FOR DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION VISITS PAKISTAN, LAUNCHES NEW USD 50 MILLION PROGRAM

DANISH MINISTER FOR DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION VISITS PAKISTAN, LAUNCHES NEW USD 50 MILLION PROGRAM.

The Government of Denmark today launched its new development program for Pakistan 2013-2016. Denmark will contribute USD 50 Million for democratic development, regional stability, human rights and gender equality. Denmark will almost double its commitment from around USD 8 million annually to USD 14 million over the next three and half years as a continuation of the first program launched in 2010.

Seen in photo: Moderator Mr. Moeed Pirzada (left), Mr. Christian Friis Bach (centre) and Mr. Tariq Fatemi (right)

The Danish Minister for Development Cooperation, Mr. Chrstian Friis Bach, who is on a two day visit to Pakistan, hosted the ceremony under the large presence of representatives from the civil society, media, diplomatic core and UN agencies. Mr. Tariq Fatemi, the Special Assistance to the Prime Minister was the Guest of Honour.

In an interactive session, Mr. Bach talked about the new program in the context of Denmark’s overall development strategy, ”The Right To a Better Life”. He stressed that the Danish development program framework reflected the strategic choices made to support Pakistan in its democratic transition, especially taking account of the continued conflicts in the north-western border areas.

The Danish development strategy has a rights-based approach and focuses on the underlying power relations and fundamental causes of discrimination and poverty, giving priority to actions aimed at benefiting the poorest. The main objective of the program is to contribute to improving the lives of poor people and their ability to create a better life for themselves.

Background:

Denmark launched its first development program for Pakistan in 2010. The new program is a three and half years program and consists of two major components:

 The first component aims to provide support to peace building, livelihoods and education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistan. The support will be provided through a Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) with a total budget of USD 15 million, which is administered by the World Bank and implemented by the provincial authorities. The

MDTF program focuses on reconstruction and economic development in the areas bordering Afghanistan and will strengthen the writ of the state, thus emphasizing its role as duty bearer. In addition, USD 11 million will be channelled to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for early recovery of educational services in the border areas.

The second component focuses on enhanced democratization, human rights and gender equality. The support will be provided to (i) state building, including to statutory bodies in the human rights area and provincial assemblies in their role as duty bearers (USD 7 million); (ii) civil society organizations as rights holder representatives in the areas of democratization, human rights and gender equality (USD 13 million) and (iii) the strengthening of bilateral ties through ‘people to people’ partnership programs (USD 4 million).

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Pakistan hits bottom on the Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum

Pakistan hits bottom on the Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum.

Pakistan moves down in the rankings from 134th to 135th position due to a worsening in political empowerment and occupies the last spot in the Asia and Pacific region. The country performed among the worst in the world on the Economic Participation and Opportunity by securing the 135th position among 136 countries globally.

Pakistan has shown poor performance on all indicators of the Global Gender Gap (GGG) Report, issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The world’s gender gaps narrowed slightly in 2013 on the back of definite if not universal improvements in economic equality and political participation between the sexes, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2013, published today.

“Both within countries and between countries are two distinct tracks to economic gender equality, with education serving as the accelerator. For countries that provide this basic investment, women’s integration in the workforce is the next frontier of change. For those that haven’t invested in women’s education, addressing this obstacle is critical to women’s lives as well as the strength of economies,” said Saadia Zahidi, co-author of the Report and Head of the Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme. The areas where Pakistan showed improvements are labour force participation (134 last year to 131 this year), estimated earned income (131 to 129 this year), enrollment in primary education (133 last year to 125 this year), enrollment in secondary education (126 in 2012 to 114 this year) and enrollment in tertiary education (105 last year to 95 this year).

Global Gender Gap Report 2013

Other countries however out-shined Pakistan’s gains by adopting pro-active approach for bridging the gender gap. The country shows no progress on improving it’s ranking on most of the indicators of the GGG index. This identifies lack of commitment from the policy makers both at public as well as private sector to include more women’s participation in economic, social and political spheres. Among areas where Pakistan lost its rankings are; wage equality for similar work 110 in 2012 to 113 in 2013.The level of gender parity among professional and technical workers was downgraded, losing 3 points for Pakistan, ranking at 108 among the 136 countries globally.

On the political empowerment pillar, although Pakistan is doing relatively better, it still lost 12 points on the Political Empowerment pillar and stands at 64 this year, similarly, women in parliament has been ranked 64 this year, as compared to 52 in 2012. The report also shows that Pakistan has a large undocumented economy, where 3% of the female population has an account in a formal financial institution, the percentage for male population is 17%. The female and male employment in the informal sector (% of non-agricultural employment) 76% and 79% respectively.

“Countries will need to start thinking of human capital very differently – including how they integrate women into leadership roles. This shift in mindset and practice is not a goal for the future, it is an imperative today,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.The eighth annual edition of the Report ranks 136 countries on their ability to close the gender gap in four key areas: economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment, health and survival, educational attainment, political participation and economic equality. Of the 133 countries that were measured in both 2012 and 2013, 86 actually improved their gender gap during this time. Overall, the Report finds Iceland the most advanced country in the world in terms of gender equality for the fifth year running. It, along with Finland (2nd), Norway (3rd) and Sweden (4th), has now closed over 80% of its gender gap. These countries are joined in the top 10 by the Philippines, which enters the top five for the first time, Ireland (6th), New Zealand (7th), Denmark (8th), Switzerland (9th) and Nicaragua (10th).

Elsewhere, in 14th place Germany is the highest-placed individual G20 economy, although it falls one place from 2012. Next is South Africa (17th, down one), the United Kingdom (level on 18th) and Canada (up one to 20th). The United States comes 23rd, also down one place since 2012. After South Africa, the next highest BRICS nation is Russia (61st), followed by Brazil (62nd), China (69th) and India (101st). At the bottom of the ranking are Chad (134th), Pakistan (135th) and Yemen (136th).

At the global level, the Report finds that in 2013, 96% of the health and survival gender gap has now been closed. It is the only one of the four pillars that has widened since the Report was first compiled in 2006. In terms of education, the global gender gap stands at 93%, with 25 countries having closed their gaps completely.

The gender gaps for economic equality and political participation are only 60% and 21% closed respectively, although progress is being made in these areas, with political participation narrowing by almost 2% over the last year. In both developing and developed countries alike, relative to the numbers of women in tertiary education and in the workforce overall, women’s presence in economic leadership positions is limited. To mobilize various stakeholders and to keep track of progress, it is important that there are quantitative benchmarks widely available.

Since 2006, through the Global Gender Gap Report series, the World Economic Forum has been quantifying the magnitude of gender- based disparities and tracking their progress over time. By providing a comprehensive framework for benchmarking global gender gaps, the Report identifies countries that are role models in dividing their resources equitably between women and men, regardless of the overall resource level.

Mishal Pakistan is the country partner institute of the Center for Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Networks of the World Economic Forum. Established in 2003, Mishal has been engaged with key stakeholders in Pakistan to improve the state of competitiveness and media through good governance initiatives.

Download the full report, covering 136 economies including rankings, video and an interactive map.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

The 2nd AGAHI Awards Maps out Quality Journalism in Pakistan.

2^ndAGAHI Awards Maps out Quality Journalism in Pakistan.

Journalists compete in more than 50 different categories; AGAHI Awards encourages best content in print, television, radio and online journalism.

Pakistan’s most prestigious journalism “Agahi Awards 2013” celebrated today at PNCA Islamabad. The Awards have been organized in collaboration with leading press clubs, local and international media development institutions, regulatory authorities, civil society organizations, private sector and other stakeholders. Puruesh Chaudhary Founder & President, AGAHI and Amir Jahangir Chief Executive Officer, Mishal Pakistan founded these awards in 2012.

The Agahi Awards are an annual series of awards for journalism in Pakistan, developed under the umbrella of the Credibility Lab at Mishal for creating an appreciation methodology for ethical and quality content. The evaluation methodology and criteria of the awards have been designed on the pillars of Media Development Indicators of UNESCO, in collaboratiosn with the Center for International Media Ethics (CIME) and UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The Awards were inaugurated in March 2012 and have become the most prestigious awards for the journalism in Pakistan.
The Awards have created appreciation for journalism in fifty different categories including business and economy, conflict, corruption, crime, education, infotainment, the nexus between water, energy and food security, gender and governance, health, extremism and terrorism, peace, interfaith, dignity; thus creating media diversity across print, television, radio and the online media.

Academic partners for Agahi Awards 2013 from the disciplines of journalism and mass communication included; Fatima Jinnah Women University (Rawalpindi), Allama Iqbal Open University (Islamabad), Bahauddin Zakariya University (Multan), International Islamic University (Islamabad), Islamia University (Bahawalpur), University of Gujrat, National University of Science and Technology (Islamabad), Roskilde University (Denmark), Center for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom at European University (Italy).

The awards ceremony was presented by Osama Bin Javaid, a Pakistani journalist based in the Middle East and Razeshta Sethna, par of the editorial team at a leading English language publication in Pakistan. The Awards also have special categories including “Current Affairs Anchor of the Year” and “News Channel of the Year” in Pakistan. These categories are on the basis of people’s choice, which includes voting for these two categories by reaching out to more than 6 million Pakistanis through social media engagement and 1.5 million via SMS campaign and direct feedback.

GEO NEWS won the Peoples' Choice Award for the "Most Favourite News Channel" second year around.

The “Current Affairs Anchor of the Year” Award was for two emerging anchors; won by Iqrar ul Hassan (ARY News) and Alia Nazki (BBC Urdu), as “the Emerging Current Affair Anchor of the Year” in the male and female categories. “Investigative Journalist of the Year” award was won by Asad Kharal (Express Tribune).

Ejaz Haider from Capital TV was awarded the “Most Credible Anchor” based on the Media Credibility Index developed in collaboration with more than 10 journalism schools in Pakistan.

To ensure diversity in content and more social issues to be highlighted in media, Mishal Pakistan in collaboration with Save the Children created the health category further dividing them into six sub-categories. This has not only increased the quantum of health content in media, but has also encouraged journalists to write more on the socio-economic challenges in Pakistan.

This year AGAHI Awards received an overwhelming response by the journalist community, where more than 1500 nominations were received from all over the country across more than 50 different categories in print, television, radio and online content.

Press Clubs in Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi, Multan, and the National Press Club along with the Kashmir Press Club (Mirpur) and the Tribal Union of Journalists, Center for International Media Ethics, Ethical Journalism Network, Media Helping Media, Save the Children, Devex, International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Press Council of Pakistan, Internews Network, Center for Investigative Journalism (Bosina-Sarajevo), Transnational Crisis Project, Hayward Black Media, MediaShift, P@sha have partnered to ensure making the journalism awards at par with international standard of journalism.

Mishal Pakistan is the country partner Institute of the Center for Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Networks at the World Economic Forum. Established in 2003, Mishal has been engaged with key stakeholders in Pakistan to improve the state of media through good governance initiatives.