Pakistan Peace
Collective (PPC), a research and communication project of the Ministry of
Information, Broadcasting & National Heritage in collaboration with the Higher
Education Commission (HEC), organized a daylong consultative session for
developing a three credit hours’ course titled “Conflict Coverage & Crisis
Communication” for the Master and Graduation level students of Mass
Communication and Media Studies department of various universities across
Pakistan. This first consultative session held today at Higher Education
Commission Islamabad, more than 30 experts representing the academic,
government and media circles attended that. The experts delivered their professional,
technical and subject related input in accordance with their knowledge and
experience.
Mr.
Mukhtar Ahmed – Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, Mr. Absar Alam
Chairman PEMRA and Ms. Marium Khan Director General (Counter Violence &
Extremism) National Counter Terrorism Authority – Pakistan graced the
consultative session as the guest of honors and presented their views on the
subject.
While appreciating the initiative
Mr. Mukhtar Ahmed expressed confidence that the proposed course would ensure
the required support to fulfill the needs of knowledge development on critical
thinking, emotional intelligence, peace building and sensitization on conflict
reporting.
It is our duty as journalists to report as accurately and
responsibly as possible on this issue. We cannot use our platforms to glorify,
sensationalize or traumatize, as the words we use and the images we show have
an enormous impact on our viewers/readers. We do not want to further the aims
of the terrorists by terrorizing the people through the images we show, said Absar Alam Chairman PEMRA.
This
national consultation brought people on board from broad spectrum from the
industries, This is also one of the mandated tasks of
the nascent National Counter Terrorism Authority of Pakistan (NACTA) to develop
course on Conflict Coverage and Crisis Communication that will eventually
benefit the National Narrative to be presented to Federal Government sooner
forming the policy on Counter Terrorism & Extremism”, said Ms.
Marium Khan.
The representatives from Universities of Punjab, Baluchistan, Sindh,
Peshawar, International Islamic University, University of Central Punjab,
Karachi University, Federal Urdu University Karachi, University of Sargodha,
and Lahore College of Women University have incorporated their recommendation
for curriculum, also representation from mainstream TV Channels like GEO TV,
NEO TV, SAMAA TV, PTV NEWS and other senior journalists were there for their
technical input as media practitioners.
This
consultation will resultantly help in developing a holistic view of
conflicts and violence in the society and educate the students on means and
methods to reflect the same through various mediums of communication including
formal media. The three credit hours’ course will help to sensitize the
Pakistani students on issues concerning violence and crises including those
resulting out of extremist tendencies. It would expectantly provide the
students with the national and international perspective on the subject. The
consultative process is also aiming to foster the integration of the entitled
course in the revised curriculum of discipline namely ‘Mass Communication’ and
‘Media Studies’ for all the universities in Pakistan.