Bad press

THE government’s move to impose restrictions on international media will not only alienate the foreign press, it will also hamper the state’s own efforts to improve Pakistan’s image abroad. To recall, the government recently mandated that anyone working for foreign media must now seek a no-objection certificate if they wish to report from anywhere apart from Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. These new rules, named in typically Orwellian fashion the ‘Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines’, supposedly “provide an administrative mechanism” for verification, coordination and facilitating access to foreign publications, according to the government. However, given the latter’s unforgiving reaction to a recent foreign media report on the polls in Azad Kashmir, which seems to have catalysed their formulation, it is clear that ‘facilitation’ is not quite what these rules are meant to achieve.

The rules require “foreign media houses, organisations and outlets working in Pakistan and all eligible journalists, media owners, media professionals, sources, freelancers, sponsors, fixers, attached persons, assignees etc, of Pakistan working or contributing for them” to seek accreditation and registration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Additionally, any Pakistani organisation or individual working with or facilitating foreign media “in any capacity” is also required to register with the ministry’s External Publicity Wing. Buried within the rules is a provision that accreditation may be suspended or withdrawn if a journalist is judged to have acted against the country’s ideology, sovereignty, security or public order. This exposes Pakistani journalists, fixers, translators and drivers who work with foreign journalists to possible retribution if the state does not like what international media publishes. What is the need for all this? Misinformation is answered with facts, and the state has no shortage of them at its disposal. With rules like these, the government is only making itself look like the villain in the eyes of the press. The guidelines must be withdrawn, or at the very least stripped of the NOC requirement and open-ended grounds for cancelling accreditation. A country that can be reported on only by permission will simply be reported on from a distance, by people forced to rely on second-hand accounts and harbouring an uncharitable view of the country’s leadership. The picture that will emerge will be less flattering; and the government will have no one but itself to blame for it.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2026

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