{"id":4594,"date":"2025-07-09T18:33:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T18:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/2025\/07\/09\/media-houses-journalists-unpaid\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T18:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T18:36:18","slug":"media-houses-journalists-unpaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/2025\/07\/09\/media-houses-journalists-unpaid\/","title":{"rendered":"Rs 10.8 Billion Given to Media Houses, But Journalists Still Unpaid"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5 data-start=\"300\" data-end=\"414\"><strong data-start=\"304\" data-end=\"414\">Billions Paid to Media Owners, But Journalists Go Unpaid: Senate Committee Slams PID, Demands ITNE Summons<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Nadeem Tanoli<\/em><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"416\" data-end=\"656\"><strong data-start=\"416\" data-end=\"444\">Islamabad \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>The Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting expressed outrage over the massive disparity between government payments to media houses and the persistent non-payment of wages to media workers.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"658\" data-end=\"935\">During the meeting, it was revealed that\u00a0<strong data-start=\"699\" data-end=\"741\">the Press Information Department (PID)<\/strong>\u00a0disbursed a staggering\u00a0<strong data-start=\"765\" data-end=\"785\">Rs. 10.8 billion<\/strong>\u00a0in advertising payments to private media outlets between\u00a0<strong data-start=\"843\" data-end=\"875\">March 5, 2024, and July 2025<\/strong>, yet\u00a0<strong data-start=\"881\" data-end=\"934\">nearly 70% of journalists and staff remain unpaid<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"937\" data-end=\"1354\">Journalists attending the session appealed to the committee, pointing out that despite the flood of public money reaching media owners, the majority of employees continue to suffer in silence. Responding to these concerns, the committee\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1174\" data-end=\"1261\">ordered the summoning of the Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper Employees (ITNE)<\/strong>\u00a0in the next session to address labor rights violations and press the issue of delayed wages.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1356\" data-end=\"1390\">According to official PID figures:<\/p>\n<ul data-start=\"1392\" data-end=\"1752\">\n<li data-start=\"1392\" data-end=\"1568\">\n<p data-start=\"1394\" data-end=\"1568\"><strong data-start=\"1394\" data-end=\"1409\">Print media<\/strong>\u00a0received\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1419\" data-end=\"1438\">Rs. 3.9 billion<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 including\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1451\" data-end=\"1470\">Rs. 2.3 billion<\/strong>\u00a0in classified ads and\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1493\" data-end=\"1512\">Rs. 1.6 billion<\/strong>\u00a0in display ads \u2014 distributed across\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1549\" data-end=\"1567\">932 newspapers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1569\" data-end=\"1752\">\n<p data-start=\"1571\" data-end=\"1752\"><strong data-start=\"1571\" data-end=\"1591\">Electronic media<\/strong>\u00a0received\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1601\" data-end=\"1620\">Rs. 6.9 billion<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 including\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1633\" data-end=\"1652\">Rs. 5.7 billion<\/strong>\u00a0from the Ministry of Information and\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1690\" data-end=\"1709\">Rs. 1.2 billion<\/strong>\u00a0from other federal government departments.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-start=\"1754\" data-end=\"1876\">Of the total Rs. 10.8 billion, only\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1790\" data-end=\"1807\">Rs. 6 billion<\/strong>\u00a0has been paid so far, while\u00a0<strong data-start=\"1836\" data-end=\"1875\">Rs. 4.8 billion remains outstanding<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1878\" data-end=\"2197\">Committee members questioned how such huge sums could be released to media companies when a large portion of their workforce hadn\u2019t seen a paycheck in months. \u201cIf the purpose of these taxpayer-funded ads is only to serve owners and not workers, then this is a system of exploitation, not support,\u201d remarked one senator.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2199\" data-end=\"2525\">The meeting also turned sharply critical of\u00a0<strong data-start=\"2243\" data-end=\"2252\">PEMRA<\/strong>\u2019s (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) failure to regulate indecent content and betting advertisements. Despite a ban, gambling promotions continue during cricket broadcasts, particularly on international feeds, which PEMRA claims are beyond its jurisdiction.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2527\" data-end=\"2718\">Several members also highlighted the\u00a0<strong data-start=\"2564\" data-end=\"2599\">subjective misuse of censorship<\/strong>, noting that while freedom of expression is repeatedly suppressed, offensive and harmful content continues unchecked.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2720\" data-end=\"3029\">The Committee has demanded a\u00a0<strong data-start=\"2749\" data-end=\"2802\">full breakdown of all advertisement disbursements<\/strong>, categorized by media house, and directed the\u00a0<strong data-start=\"2849\" data-end=\"2894\">Secretary of Information and Broadcasting<\/strong>\u00a0to appear in the next session. Lawmakers emphasized that public money must come with public accountability \u2014 not selective enrichment.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"3031\" data-end=\"3196\">The meeting concluded with renewed calls for structural reform in media regulation and urgent steps to protect the economic rights of journalists across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Billions Paid to Media Owners, But Journalists Go Unpaid: Senate Committee Slams PID, Demands ITNE Summons Nadeem Tanoli Islamabad \u2013\u00a0The Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting expressed outrage over the massive disparity between government payments to media houses and the persistent non-payment of wages to media workers. During the meeting, it was revealed that\u00a0the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,1],"tags":[1611,1608,1610,1607,1612,1609,1613,1614,1341,1615],"class_list":["post-4594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan","category-breaking-news-headlines","tag-itnesummons","tag-journalistrights","tag-mediaaccountability","tag-pakistanmediacrisis","tag-pemraregulation","tag-pidfunding","tag-pressfreedompakistan","tag-publicfundstransparency","tag-senatecommittee","tag-supportjournalists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4594"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4598,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594\/revisions\/4598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}