Comparing Media Coverage of Events across Brrders

Comparing Media Coverage of Events across Bs

The issue

The imposition of Emergency and the suspension of the constitution by President Parvez Mushrraf , signalling a return to direct military rule has plunged Pakistan into one of its darkest phases ever . The mass detension of activists and lawyers , the clampdown on Pakistani media forbidden to express any opinion prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan ' or its integrity ' and the summary removal of the feisty Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Iftikar Chaudhary who had been spiritedly resisting the attempts to curb the

independence of the judiciary , arechilling signs that the dreaded days of military rule are back . The general has now been revealed in his true colours as a ruthless military dictator , in the mould of Zia-ul-Huq and all his dismal predecessors who had kept Pakistan in a state of permanent Army rule

The reaction of the media - news values in context

The media around the world have reacted sharply to General Musharraf 's imposition of emergency in Pakistan , firstly as an incident of assault to democratic values , and secondly as a move to establish an anti-people military regime which is suppressionist and autocratic in every sense Of course these two elements are enough for media to celebrate , as they determine the news values of the modern day

In 1973 J . Galtung and M . Ruge analysed the foreign news in a set of daily newss . They obtained very interesting results they found that for any event to become a `news item ' and therefore considered `newsworthy , it had to pass through aselection process . If it confirmed to a particular set of criteria ,the news staff judged it to be eligible for entry . This is not to say that the staff were consciously subjecting items to judgement ,rather that they used a professional methodology to `nose ' out a good story . This set of criteria Galtung and Ruge called `news values . They are both practical and social factors at work in this process . The practical factors include timing of an event and the amount of space available in the news or TV news broadcast . The social factors form a framework or pattern from which journalist select items that they consider are most appropriate . The criteria were Immediacy or frequency , Importance , Clarity of events , Meaningfulness Expected and unexpectedness , Composition , Reference to elite nations Reference to elite people , Personalisation and Negativity

The coverage of the Pak Crisis has shown these news values in action and it depended on the several factors like whether Pakistan was an ally or a hostile nation of the country of the country of origin of the media type , diplomatic relationship and the policy of the news

Table : Comparison of news headlines /leads

Date Media type Name /Country Headlines /Lead

Nov 4 News The Hindu / India Musharaf clamps emergency

Removes Iftikhar Chaudhary as Chief Justice citing judicial interference , new provisional constitution in place

Source : AFP ,PTI

Nov 4 News

Internet edn . China Daily / China Musharraf imposes emergency rule

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf...