Political Influence upon the Journalists in Sindh Province, Pakistan

Abstract

Professional autonomy claims to play a central role in maintaining quality journalism. However, in third-world countries presuming the production of news without any influence upon the news-workers is hard to perceive. Thus the purpose of this study was to investigate the existence and level of political influence upon the journalists while doing the service of news production. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect the required data from the working journalists who belonged to the Hyderabad division, Sindh province, Pakistan. A sample of available respondents was selected purposively from the population. A close-ended questionnaire was adapted for data collection that encompassed the construct of “perceived political influence”. The questionnaire was administered in person among the sampled journalists. Added to ensure the reliability of the research design and field procedure a pilot study was conducted on a sub-sample. In this way, the results showed that political parties or politicians put the highest level of influence upon the surveyed journalists followed by censorship and government officials respectively. In summary, this study found that all three factors that is political parties or politicians, censorship, and government officials exerted varying levels of influence upon the journalists.