Job Insecurity and Self-Censorship in Pakistani Media

Abstract

This research study aims to understand how job insecurity leads to self-censorship in Pakistani media and how different gatekeepers influence journalists’ decisions when they report the news content. Media in Pakistan has been going through a critical phase. Scores of journalists have been sacked by their respective organizations because of depleting financial revenue. Some organizations have drastically reduced the salaries of their journalists, and many others do not pay salaries in time. Data for this research was collected from 366 journalists across Pakistan through questionnaire, which was analyzed via the statistical tool SPSS. This study has found a majority of journalists are not even provided equal to a minimum wage of labourers, and the 8th wage board award is yet to be implemented. Most of them are working on an ad hoc and contractual basis. The owners of their media organizations fire them anytime without any reason as there is no legal cover to their jobs. The government, media owners, and other state and non-state actors force journalists to follow their instructions instead of practicing quality and objective journalism. Thus, job insecurity has a significant effect on the performance of journalists, and it is one of the major factors in the practice of self-censorship.