Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry informed the committee that not only the electronic media, but also the print and "cyber media" would come under the umbrella of PMRA. "It is just a concept paper which requires consensus from opposition parties and the owners of media houses before being tabled for legislation in Parliament," he said.
He assured the committee that the government would take opposition and all bodies representing journalists onboard and the act for new media regulatory body would be passed through consensus.
The federal cabinet approved formation of PMRA that envisages merger of all bodies regulating media, including the print and the electronic media. With the formation of the PMRA, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and Press Council of Pakistan (PCP) would be merged into the new organisation.
However, Marriyum Aurangzeb of PML-N opposed the concept paper and said that intent of the government was not clear in the concept paper. "It is not clear whether the government wants to replace the existing regulatory laws for the media or it intends to merge other media regulatory bodies," she asked.
She argued that the two separate bodies were regulating electronic and the print media in the other countries in last five years and scope of the print media was further increasing. She said it was unclear whether the government wants to intensify the existing media regulation or replace the laws. "There are not details that which laws the government wants to replace and merger of all media bodies is very complex and required a lot of legislation," she added.
Citing an example, she said bill board and other advertisements were devolved to provinces after passage of 18th constitutional amendments. If government wanted to merge or replace media laws, it also required further amendment in the 18th constitutional amendments, she added.
She further explained that relevant ministries would also be merged with the merger of media bodies.
She said the concept paper was not clear the purpose of merger, functions and structure of the new authority and details of human resource.
She opined that setting up media tribunals in existing rules had only missing link which need to be addressed. Without media tribunals, she said people easily obtained stay orders from the courts.
She questioned cross media could not be controlled in the world, how could federal government planned to control through the proposed new media regulatory authority?
Earlier, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that government was in consultation with opposition parties and owner of media houses to build a consensus on the draft media regulatory authority bill.
He said the consensus would be built on various sections of the proposed media authority draft. The stakeholders would feed the government if they wanted the media be regulated. Weather there should be one media regulatory body or more and the model of composition of the board of the authority, he added.
He opined that the board should comprise representatives from the government and opposition both sides.
He further said the government plan was to bring all seven different media regulators into one regulatory authority. He argued that a news came in the print media was usually pick up by tweeters and electronic media. Therefore, they proposed to bring print, electronic and digital media under one roof, he said.
He said that an estimated Rs 6 billion digitized advertisement went to Silicon Valley and again Rs 12 billion would go in digitized advertisement in current year which need to be resolved through a proper mechanism.
He said the government believed in freedom of expression and the media. Through this proposed authority, the government would save consumers from fake news and judicial forum would be set up to address the grievances of media workers.
Earlier the committee was given a comprehensive briefing on the 'function and performance' of Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV's) Managing Director. In his ruling, chairman committee Mian Javed Latif said that the present MD PTV should not be allowed to perform his duty till the matter would resolve. He further directed the management to provide details of salary and other parks he (MD) received during the last three and half months.
Few members of the committee expressed displeasure over absence of MD PTV from the meeting. Others asked chairman committee to give MD PTV chance to clear his position. The committee also questioned about the appointment of MD PTV on hefty salary against the judgment of the Supreme Court in former MD PTV Attaullah Qasmi case.