Cost of Publication by Jamshid Surani

Print and Electronic media is doing a remarkable job in promoting  businesses, enterprises, education and many more  through Advertisements. A lot of Income is seems to be generated for running a Newspaper or Channel, creating awareness, employment and competition.  My topic is not to discourage advertisement in media but just a little effort to stop irrelevant one which are published by the Government Institutions, especially these days, as my social responsibility.

Nowadays, almost every newspaper is publishing colored advertisements of the present Government, claiming that we served, we changed we entitled common person etc. sometimes for new announcements, new schemes with dashing pictures of the Present Government leaders and  smiling faces.  The present leaders have very good idea of serving the common person(s) on the Cost of publication and broadcasting in the print & Electronic media. A colorful and attractive advertisement is designed to publish for an opening of   any level of project and stimulate people and media to speak on the occasion with a lot of promises and exaggerated things.    

Who will make payments for these huge costs advertisements? And who will be responsible for the misappropriation of Government funds?, No one but the  institutions  of our country which will be recovered from the common person in shape of new taxes and increase of prices of basic items. An individual who is already crying for economic relief will be pushed more deep into the vicious circle of Poverty. The reason is that every ad costs more then ten million rupees. It is very easy to design well and attractive advertisements and specific organizations are working for this purpose. A top newspaper claimed that special duty is assigned to the special team for promoting the current Government morale in the media. The deteriorated moral of the present Government is the response of the voice of masses of this country, who is struggling for their basic needs. Society members attached with Government also publish colored ads in appreciation of the elected members so that to get more and more reward.

This was the situation of print media, now just imagine cost of advertisements in electronic media, where rate is charged per minute and the ad is prepared by spending a lot of finances. No doubt media brings revolution in our society. But this is one side of the very attractive picture, and one can calculate the efforts of media in financial terms.

people is pushing each other in a queue for getting floor, sugar and other subsidized basic needs of life. In Punjab, police were shown on television screens beating men and women who were thriving to get a bag of subsidized flour from sale points established by the government of the Punjab The footage of the electronic and print media looks like exactly the situation of poor African countries striving for basic needs. No doubt we are also on the same line of poverty, but an optimistic person is not ready to accept it. 

I asked a one intellectual and my senior about the advertisements of Government Institutions, he claimed that it creates awareness and promotes our institutions. No doubt advertisements are more significant in this respect but we know all our problems and we should spent efforts for its solution. A diabetic patient is not interested in knowing how much people have diabetic and what Government is doing as remedy, but he is worried about his treatment. The same is the case in every sector of our society.  A person is more likely to get some physical, medical or material reward then awareness.