LAHORE – Punjab Minister for Information and Culture, Fayaz-ul-Hassan Chohan affirmed on Tuesday that all media houses carried equal importance for the government, negating the perception of censorship on free speech.
“The government is neutral towards media houses, it neither loves nor hates any institution,” he said while talking to the journalists who were staging a protest.
The minister said the government was making serious efforts for the solution of problems faced by journalists adding that the issues regarding disbursement of salaries would be solved soon through dialogues with representatives of journalists organizations and owners of media houses.
Chohan said that advertisement policy of Punjab government was in final phase which would be implemented after the approval of Chief Minister Punjab, Sardar Usman Buzdar.
‘If a media house does not pay the salary of journalists for more than two months then its advertisement would be stopped,’ he assured.
The Minister said that meetings were being held for solving the problems of media owners and journalists body and suggestions of all stakeholders would be included in new advertisement policy.
He apprised the journalists that the recovery was being ensured from the department of Punjab government which had stopped the payment of advertisements.
He said that declarations of 650 dummy newspapers had been canceled because of rightful newspapers were ignored because of them.
