Mishal in Media

International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI) and Mishal Pakistan collaborate to develop media credibility index

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Published on August 2, 2013 at 10:56 am

ISLAMABAD: The International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI) Department of Media and Communication Studies (DMCS) will collaborate with Mishal Pakistan to develop a media credibility index, an initiative to create new frameworks and methodologies to measure current trends and indices on media ethics, journalism standards, media credibility and rankings to be measured on international benchmarks.“There is an urgent need for the Pakistani media industry to come up with an innovative methodology which can complement the current trends and establish the authenticity of the content on the basis of credibility, reliability and professionalism of the people creating news on daily basis,” said International Islamic University Department of Media and Communication Studies Chairman Dr Zafar Iqbal.

For the first time in Pakistan, Mishal has designed a media credibility index after an in-depth study of media laws, ethics, rules and regulations drafted by different media groups, regulatory bodies and journalistic organisations both nationally and internationally to explore the state of media in Pakistan. The media credibility index is measured on the six credibility indicators and twenty sub-indices, said Dr Iqbal.

Sharing his views about media credibility index, Dr Zafar Iqbal said “we are honoured to be part of this research initiative with Mishal and to put all our efforts to make this initiative credible, objective and an informative and model study to contribute in the knowledge ecosystem.” He further said that DMCS appreciates Mishal Pakistan’s effort of bridging the gap between the industry and academia through this important initiative for Pakistan.

He said that the DMCS has been envisioned as a centre of excellence for promoting media and communication studies in the country.

“We aim to accomplish this in a manner that can be useful for the media professionals, academic scholars, researchers, NGOs, policy makers and regulators.”

Mishal Pakistan Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Amir Jahangir said that the media credibility index utilises a qualitative empirical evidence-based approach for measuring the credibility of these professionals through an extensive analytical observation process across the six pillars of credibility.

These pillars consist of: professionalism, accuracy, balance, timeliness, ethics and fairness. These pillars have been derived after examining and comparing more than thirty codes of conducts, ten of which are from the Pakistani institutions and twenty-four from international code of ethics of media entities, regulatory bodies and other research institutions. Codes of ethics framed by Pakistani media groups have also being included.

The MCI will assess the media discourse and credibility of current affair content in the country. This extensive study entails thirty-five current affair programmes of the mainstream leading Pakistani news channels.

Mishal Pakistan is the partner institute of the Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Networks, World Economic Forum. Mishal assists the forum in creating the soft-data on Pakistan, identifying Pakistan’s competitiveness challenges.

Mishal has also launched Pakistan’s first journalism awards on the framework designed jointly with the Centre for International Media Ethics and UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators.

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