Associated Press of Pakistan
Encyclopedia
Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) is a government-operated national news agency
of Pakistan
. It is not associated with the Associated Press
agency (AP).
for financial support, which was granted in the form of loans and subsidies. Government support enabled APP to subscribe to the services of the world's news agencies and to open offices in major cities of the country.
8 laks to the government's Post and Telegraph Department and another Rs. 12 laks in unpaid subscription fees to foreign news agencies. The Government of Pakistan
intervened and took over the agency on 15 July 1961 following the instruction of certain vested interests within the Government of Pakistan.
The take over took place with several changes: Malik Tajuddin was removed and A K Qureshi, a senior government officer with some journalistic experience, was hired as Administrator of APP. The head office of the agency was shifted to Islamabad
, the new capital of Pakistan. While the financial position of the agency further deteriorated, but its coverage became more biased as the government started to use it as an official mouthpiece. A K Qureshi was a member of the ill-fated National Press Trust delegation traveling to London by PIA Flight 705
that crashed at Cairo on May 20, 1965. He is buried in a mass grave at Cairo alongside his fellow passengers: victims of Pakistan's first jet aircraft disaster.
, APP maintains three bureaux (Karachi
, Lahore
and Rawalpindi
) and nine news centres (Sukkur
, Multan
, Quetta
, Faisalabad
, Larkana
, Hyderabad, Bahawalpur
, Peshawar
and Muzaffarabad
).
The editorial function of any news agency is same as that of a newspaper i.e. it is divided between reporting teams and the news desk. In smaller centres, the editorial staff consists of a reporter and a sub-editor. In the larger bureaux of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, the reporting team is composed of about twelve reporters, responsible for specific beats such as economy, sports, crime, national and provincial assemblies or major government departments. These news desks are responsible for copy-writing and for coordinating activities of the reporting team. They also handle press releases of government information and private companies.
The whole news operation is monitored by a Central News Desk (CND) located at the head office. News stories from all bureaux are sent to Islamabad for editing and from there the combined service is distributed nationally. The CND is connected with at least four international satellite circuits for receiving foreign news via a computer network:
duplex circuit between Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore.
Mr. M. Aftab, APPs General-Manager in 1991, undertook to improve the agency's technical resources. The resulting upgrade saw a transformation of data output speed from 50 words per minute (WMP) to 1200 WPM, most of which is now directly fed into the computers of the subscribers simultaneously throughout Pakistan and overseas.
, Pakistan Times
, Frontier Post
, The Nation, The News International
, Business Recorder
and Nawa-i-Waqt
.
s, traffic attendants, data entry operators and finance staff.
In addition there are a small number of "stringers" (part time correspondents) at various district headquarters in Pakistan and aboard.
After decades gap the system of journalists posting aboard was revived during the first tenure of Mr. M. Aftab. He secured approval of the Ministry to post four senior journalists as special correspondents in Washington D.C., London
, Beijing
and New Delhi
.
Since the government takeover, APP has continued with an undefined status – neither an official government body nor an independent news outfit, APP has drawn criticism as a mouthpiece for the government of the day. In 1998, however, a Bill
was proposed to convert APP into a corporation. A committee of media pundits is reportedly engaged in drafting APP corporation bylaw
for final approval of the government.
Due to this unclear status, there is no long-term financing in place for APP, with allocations being made on an annual basis by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. APP’s annual expenditure is now placed at Rs. 140 million. APP generates 600% of its revenue from the government, and the remainder is raised through subscription from electronic media including television and radio and newspapers as well as foreign news agencies, business and non-media subscribers.
:
According to Niazi:
, AFP, and the Associated Press
of America (AP). United Press International
was also linked with APP, but the agreement was allowed to lapse.
APP has co-operation agreements with some 35 news agencies, mainly in third world
countries. Under these agreements, news is exchanged on a barter
basis. Prominent among these are the Islamic Republic News Agency
(Iran
), the Press Trust of India
, and MENA (Egypt).
respectively. Islamabad is the head office to receive photographs from within Pakistan and aboard, and transmits them to the agency's bureaux and stations which distribute them to local newspapers.
by the APP and then back into Urdu by newspaper editor – greatly increasing the chances of translation, emphasis or context errors. The Urdu Service, while still small, has been effective in producing text in both languages.
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. It is not associated with the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
agency (AP).
Lack of financial resources
Following Pakistan's independence, the new-born country's press was economically weak, and was thus unable to financially support the agency. APP asked the Government of PakistanGovernment of Pakistan
The Government of Pakistan is a federal parliamentary system, with an indirectly-elected President as the Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Pakistani Armed Forces, and an indirectly-elected Prime Minister as the Head of Government. The President’s appointment and term are...
for financial support, which was granted in the form of loans and subsidies. Government support enabled APP to subscribe to the services of the world's news agencies and to open offices in major cities of the country.
Government takeover
The financial situation of APP continued to deteriorate until it was on the verge of collapse. This was the direct result of the withholding of payment of arrears from the Government of Pakistan due from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in an effort to create a financial crisis for the national news agency. It owed about Rs.Pakistani rupee
The rupee is the currency of Pakistan. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of the country. The most commonly used symbol for the rupee is Rs, used on receipts when purchasing goods and services. In Pakistan, the rupee is referred to as the...
8 laks to the government's Post and Telegraph Department and another Rs. 12 laks in unpaid subscription fees to foreign news agencies. The Government of Pakistan
Government of Pakistan
The Government of Pakistan is a federal parliamentary system, with an indirectly-elected President as the Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Pakistani Armed Forces, and an indirectly-elected Prime Minister as the Head of Government. The President’s appointment and term are...
intervened and took over the agency on 15 July 1961 following the instruction of certain vested interests within the Government of Pakistan.
The take over took place with several changes: Malik Tajuddin was removed and A K Qureshi, a senior government officer with some journalistic experience, was hired as Administrator of APP. The head office of the agency was shifted to Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
, the new capital of Pakistan. While the financial position of the agency further deteriorated, but its coverage became more biased as the government started to use it as an official mouthpiece. A K Qureshi was a member of the ill-fated National Press Trust delegation traveling to London by PIA Flight 705
PIA Flight 705
Pakistan International Airlines Flight 705 was a Boeing 720–040B that crashed while descending to land on Runway 34 at Cairo International Airport on May 20, 1965 resulting in 119 fatalities.-Details:...
that crashed at Cairo on May 20, 1965. He is buried in a mass grave at Cairo alongside his fellow passengers: victims of Pakistan's first jet aircraft disaster.
Editorial operation
Besides its head office in IslamabadIslamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...
, APP maintains three bureaux (Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
and Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
) and nine news centres (Sukkur
Sukkur
Sukkur, or Sakharu , formerly Aror and Bakar, is the third largest city of Sindh province, situated on the west bank of Indus River in Pakistan in Sukkur District. However, the word Sakharu in Sindhi means "superior", which the spelling of the city's name in Sindhi suggests is the origin of the...
, Multan
Multan
Multan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
, Quetta
Quetta
is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...
, Faisalabad
Faisalabad
Faisalabad , formerly known as Lyallpur, is the third largest metropolis in Pakistan, the second largest in the province of Punjab after Lahore, and a major industrial center in the heart of Pakistan. Before the foundation of the city in 1880, the area was very thinly populated. The population has...
, Larkana
Larkana
Larkana or Larkano is the fourth largest city in the north-western part of Sindh Province, Pakistan, and is located within Larkana District.The old name of larkano is chandka which was changed in 1901. In August 2000 Larkana celebrated its hundred years of existence...
, Hyderabad, Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur , located in the province of Punjab, is the twelfth largest city in Pakistan. The city was once the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur. The city was home to various Nawabs and counted as part of the Rajputana states...
, Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
and Muzaffarabad
Muzaffarabad
Muzaffarabad is the capital of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Pakistan. It is located in Muzaffarabad District on the banks of the Jhelum and Neelum rivers...
).
The editorial function of any news agency is same as that of a newspaper i.e. it is divided between reporting teams and the news desk. In smaller centres, the editorial staff consists of a reporter and a sub-editor. In the larger bureaux of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, the reporting team is composed of about twelve reporters, responsible for specific beats such as economy, sports, crime, national and provincial assemblies or major government departments. These news desks are responsible for copy-writing and for coordinating activities of the reporting team. They also handle press releases of government information and private companies.
The whole news operation is monitored by a Central News Desk (CND) located at the head office. News stories from all bureaux are sent to Islamabad for editing and from there the combined service is distributed nationally. The CND is connected with at least four international satellite circuits for receiving foreign news via a computer network:
- ReutersReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
from Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour... - Agence France-PresseAgence France-PresseAgence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...
from ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... - Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
from LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its... - Xinhua from Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
Communication networks
Despite APP being considered Pakistan's “premier” news agency, for decades the agency ran on old, obsolete and unreliable equipment. News copy was being carried on a 50-baudBaud
In telecommunications and electronics, baud is synonymous to symbols per second or pulses per second. It is the unit of symbol rate, also known as baud rate or modulation rate; the number of distinct symbol changes made to the transmission medium per second in a digitally modulated signal or a...
duplex circuit between Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore.
Mr. M. Aftab, APPs General-Manager in 1991, undertook to improve the agency's technical resources. The resulting upgrade saw a transformation of data output speed from 50 words per minute (WMP) to 1200 WPM, most of which is now directly fed into the computers of the subscribers simultaneously throughout Pakistan and overseas.
Subscribers
Being the national news agency of Pakistan, APP collects and disseminate domestic and international news to 84 (1992) newspapers of Pakistan besides Radio, television and government offices and some foreign media. APP’s subscription rates are higher than other agencies in Pakistan because of its monopoly of world news agencies. For this reason every newspaper in Pakistan cannot subscribe to its services. Notable subscribers to APP's services include: DawnDawn (newspaper)
Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper. One of the country's two largest English-language dailies, it is the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, published by Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns the Herald, a magazine, the evening paper The Star and...
, Pakistan Times
Pakistan Times
Pakistan Times is an independent online daily newspaper. It is published from Islamabad.-External links:**...
, Frontier Post
Frontier Post
The only English-language newspaper distributed through Pakistan and Afghanistan collectively, The Frontier Post is based in Peshawar, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, previously known as the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan....
, The Nation, The News International
The News International
The News International , published in tabloid size, is the largest English language newspaper in Pakistan. The News has an ABC certified circulation of 140,000. It is published from Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi/Islamabad...
, Business Recorder
Business Recorder
Business Recorder is the biggest financial daily in Pakistan and the first such publication to be published in the Muslim world. The publication is owned by the Business Recorder Group which is one of South Asia's preeminent media conglomerates with interests in Television, Web, Finance and...
and Nawa-i-Waqt
Nawa-i-Waqt
Nawa-i-Waqt is an Urdu daily newspaper in Pakistan. Nawa-i-Waqt started its publishing on March 23, 1940 under the leadership of Hameed Nizami. The tradition is continued by his brother Majid Nizami. Nawa-i-Waqt is one of the largest circulating newspapers in the country...
.
Staff
The number of APP's employees is estimated at between 350 and 400, of whom over 100 are journalists and photographers. The remainder are administrative staff, including computer engineers, technicians, peonPeon
The words peon and peonage are derived from the Spanish peón . It has a range of meanings but its primary usage is to describe laborers with little control over their employment conditions.-English usage:...
s, traffic attendants, data entry operators and finance staff.
In addition there are a small number of "stringers" (part time correspondents) at various district headquarters in Pakistan and aboard.
After decades gap the system of journalists posting aboard was revived during the first tenure of Mr. M. Aftab. He secured approval of the Ministry to post four senior journalists as special correspondents in Washington D.C., London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
and New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
.
Management and financing
APP is a government organisation, responsible to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The agency is headed by a Director-General, appointed by the Ministry. Fazal Ur Rehman is the current Managing Director of APP, who is not a journalist but a Press Information Department.Since the government takeover, APP has continued with an undefined status – neither an official government body nor an independent news outfit, APP has drawn criticism as a mouthpiece for the government of the day. In 1998, however, a Bill
Bill (proposed law)
A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....
was proposed to convert APP into a corporation. A committee of media pundits is reportedly engaged in drafting APP corporation bylaw
Bylaw
By-law can refer to a law of local or limited application passed under the authority of a higher law specifying what things may be regulated by the by-law...
for final approval of the government.
Due to this unclear status, there is no long-term financing in place for APP, with allocations being made on an annual basis by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. APP’s annual expenditure is now placed at Rs. 140 million. APP generates 600% of its revenue from the government, and the remainder is raised through subscription from electronic media including television and radio and newspapers as well as foreign news agencies, business and non-media subscribers.
News service
The APP News Service is mainly divided into three main areas: official, political and district news.Official news
APP gives a more detailed coverage to the activities and statements of government dignitaries. Newspapers and the government-controlled radio and television rely to the greater extent on APP for government news. According to renowned journalist Zamir NiaziZamir Niazi
Zamir Niazi was a renowned Pakistani journalist, famous for his commitment to the freedom of the press in Pakistan.- Biography :In 1954, Niazi joined Dawn. He advanced quickly, and was soon a sub-editor. In 1962, he left Dawn to be a chief sub editor and lead writer at its rival, the Daily News....
:
- "Most of the time and energy of APP since the days of Ayub Khan is being consumed in creeding long speeches of the president and other ministries, the rest are allocated to the government press notes and other lesser government functionaries."
Political news
Being the government agency, APP has extensively concentrated on government news thus neglecting cultural, political, economic and other sectors of national life. Even more damaging to the credibility of APP has been the repeated use of agency to carry out disinformation and smear campaigns against opposition leaders and parties.According to Niazi:
- "How APP has functioned and what is its credibility among its client and public at large is another sorry chapter in the story of our press... the agency has served its masters one after the other with equal zeal and perfect consistency. Thus it gained the notoriety of being a center of news management, fabrication and distortions."
District news
APP's district news service is not highly regarded, as its resources are so thinly-placed across the country that most of the information from this department comes from government information officers.Foreign news
APP has become the main source of international news for the Pakistani media. The agency subscribes to ReutersReuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
, AFP, and the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
of America (AP). United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
was also linked with APP, but the agreement was allowed to lapse.
APP has co-operation agreements with some 35 news agencies, mainly in third world
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
countries. Under these agreements, news is exchanged on a barter
Barter
Barter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a...
basis. Prominent among these are the Islamic Republic News Agency
Islamic Republic News Agency
The Islamic Republic News Agency , or IRNA, is the official news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is government-funded and controlled under the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The agency also publishes the newspaper Iran. , the Managing Director of IRNA is Ali Akbar...
(Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
), the Press Trust of India
Press Trust of India
Press Trust of India is the largest news agency in India. It is headquartered in Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 450 Indian newspapers and has a staff of about 2,000 writers spread across 150 offices nationwide...
, and MENA (Egypt).
Commercial service
The commercial service of APP provides currency and commodity rates from Reuters, financial and economic services, banks and large business houses. APP planned to expand this service, but suffered a setback in the mid-1980s when Reuters bypassed APP and began to sell its financial services directly to business houses and newspapers in Pakistan.Photo service
APP has its own photographic section equipped with photo receivers and photo transmitters in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and QuettaQuetta
is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...
respectively. Islamabad is the head office to receive photographs from within Pakistan and aboard, and transmits them to the agency's bureaux and stations which distribute them to local newspapers.
Urdu service
The agency’s Urdu language service started in the 1980s to cater for the needs of growing fleet of Urdu language dailies in Pakistan. The idea behind the setting up of the service was to avoid errors and ensure accuracy. As a practice, Urdu speech was often translated into EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by the APP and then back into Urdu by newspaper editor – greatly increasing the chances of translation, emphasis or context errors. The Urdu Service, while still small, has been effective in producing text in both languages.
External links
- www.app.com.pk - Associated Press of Pakistan official website