There are dozens of news channels operating in Pakistan and the number is growing with the passage of time. These news channels are hyperactive in terms of treating frivolous issues which are relentlessly being presented as breaking news. However, major potential news coming out from Balochistan is not on the radar of Pakistani news channels. Balochistan is only given coverage whenever a mishap takes place in the form of a bomb blast or target killing. Other than broadcasting small news packages, which can be termed as fillers, Balochistan is completely blacked out in national news media.

In Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), notable news channels have their offices, staff and DSNG vans in almost all the major cities. This enables them to cover all urban centers in those three provinces. In the case of Balochistan, news channels along with their staff and DSNG vans are only stationed in Quetta and have no presence in the rest of the 34 districts of the province. Moving to the major English language newspapers, their policies towards Balochistan are not different. Some newspapers have only one correspondent in the province while don’t have a single correspondent for the largest province of Pakistan. These facts speak for themselves.

Why is Balochistan ignored by the national media? The first reason is that Balochistan is facing an ongoing separatist insurgency and security forces filter a great deal of information going out from the province. Undoubtedly, that’s one of the reasons that contributed to the blacking out of Balochistan in the media. However, the main reason behind ignoring Balochistan is the commercial interests of the corporate media of Pakistan. Profit-driven corporate media of Pakistan doesn’t earn much revenue from Balochistan and that’s why it has no interest in giving coverage to Balochistan which has become a news desert.

PKMAP (Pashtoon Khawa mili Awami party) EX MPA Balochistan Assembly Nasrullah Zehri said that “Balochistan is facing a lot of issues due to the apathy of the federal government, ranging from long hours of electricity load shedding to fewer PIA flights, amongst others. These issues continue to be unresolved because there is no media pressure to force the federal government to stop discriminating against Balochistan.”

Ex MPA said that the media owner says the coverage we are providing to Balochistan is already a big favor and don’t expect anything more from us. Those self-serving and corrupt media bosses, who don’t pay their staff on time, need to behave and treat all the parts of the country on an equal basis.

In fact, it should be obligatory on all mainstream news channels and newspapers to give sufficient coverage to all provinces of Pakistan. A clause can be added in the license agreement of news channels to prevent them from ignoring a province of Pakistan just for the sake of petty monetary gains.

Nasrullah, the former MPA of the Pashtoon Khawa Milli Awami Party, said that the national media is a clear example of the fact that the problems and people of Balochistan have always been neglected as the martyrdom of Pashtun Khawa Milli Awami Party leader and former senator Mohammad Usman Kakar not covered on national media.

The way the deceased funeral Karavan was welcomed from Karachi to Quetta and from Quetta to Muslim Bagh, the national media did not give any coverage to this large-scale reception and his martyrdom. Because of this, the people of Baluchistan are in a rage against the national media, recently on the occasion of the anniversary of martyr Usman Kakar, our party together with the nationalists of Balochistan held the biggest rally in the history of Balochistan. But the national media, as usual, did not give more than one minute of time to our rally in the whole day media bulletin. Our party had campaigned for a whole month for this meeting, but not giving even one minute of coverage is completely unfair.

Jamaat-e-Islami provincial spokesman Wali Shakir said that the national media has completely ignored the problems of Balochistan, due to which the problems and difficulties have increased along with the feeling of deprivation, prejudice and hatred has also increased to a dangerous extent. If the media plays a sincere role in highlighting the burning collective national problems, the problems can be reduced to a considerable extent. Unfortunately, the National Media is completely ignoring Balochistan, the political and common people of Balochistan everywhere are complaining about the National Media. If you look at the social media, the people of Balochistan seem to be unhappy with the national media, compared to other provinces, the national media is not giving coverage to Balochistan. If we look at the national media, we feel that Balochistan may not be a part of Pakistan. Unfortunately, we are right in saying that the media gives more coverage and importance to the animals of other provinces than the people of Balochistan. In Balochistan, if there is an explosion, such incidents get coverage in seconds, while in other provinces, if an animal comes in front of a vehicle and the animal is injured, the national media gives it coverage for hours. A clear example of this occurred on May 19, 2023 in Zhob near the convoy of Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Siraj-ul-Haq, but luckily Siraj-ul-Haq was unharmed. The incident was not given adequate coverage by the national media. Due to this the report of this incident and all similar incidents has not been submitted till date. When Jamaat-e-Islami Spokesman Wali Shakir was asked about the reasons for this neglecting behavior, he argued that there may be many reasons for the national media to ignore Balochistan, one is that there are no factories, there is no business, maybe they are not getting advertisements,

He said that I belong to a religious party, but when we go on a tour in the province, there is hatred against the national media even among the people of distant districts. This is the way to remove this hatred that the media should play a role regarding the burning issues of Balochistan. Special programs should be aired, and Balochistan should be represented in talk shows. If some importance is given to Balochistan in round-the-clock coverage, the problems of the province can be solved.

Former President BUJ (Balochistan Union of Journalist) Salman Ashraf said, From 2002 onwards Balochistan has been a fertile land for government corruption. Successive governments have taken their share of the pie. It’s astonishing to reveal that not a single story of corruption from Balochistan has ever been revealed by the national media. All the investigative journalists of Pakistan pretend that Balochistan doesn’t exist while choosing news stories to work on. Hence, politicians and bureaucrats in Balochistan are filling their pockets with government funds without any fear of media reporting.

The people of Balochistan are paying the price because the funds allocated for them end up in the pockets of crooked government officials.

Media, therefore, has the responsibility to guide the nation in this hour of tense tug of war.

By accurate and objective reporting, the media may be able to highlight the real causes behind the discontent in the province. If it successfully creates a narrative in the nation that revolves around human development and basic human rights in the province, we might well be able to understand the challenges that Balochistan faces today and thus be able to not only protect the people of Balochistan from the exploiting classes, whoever camp they are in but also secure CPEC, which is certainly critical to Pakistan’s economic future.

Senior journalist Nadeem Kausar said Balochistan is a restive province of Pakistan. At the same time, it is probably the most critical province considering its geostrategic location and the minerals that its land possesses. However, the region has largely remained neglected, sowing seeds of discontent among the masses. Media can play a major role in bringing the issues of the people of Balochistan to the fore. Being one of the four pillars of the state, the role of media in making Balochistan an issue of the masses cannot be neglected. The media has to highlight the issues that the people of Balochistan face. It is generally believed that the issues of Balochistan are neglected not only by the federation and the other provinces but also by the mainstream media. The impression has gained hold during the last years, starting from the ‘murder’ of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in August 2006.

Bureau Chief Public TV Quetta Sadia Jahangir said that national media has its own policies, journalists of Balochistan bring out news in very difficult situations, but if there is even a small news in Islamabad, Karachi or Lahore, they on air it. We give news despite difficult situations, they are mostly not on air, All the media channels give more priority to the news of Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. Another reason is that whenever we talk on any platform that Balochistan is not getting proper on air time, they say that big journalists who come here, anchor persons come here, we are surprised to hear their words, they say what you are giving to the institution. Because there is no industry here, there are no advertisements from here, the government also gives advertisements to their favorite institutions and people, the lowest salary is also the employees of Balochistan. The salary of a cameraman is 25 to 30 thousands and for a senior reporter the budget is 40 to 45 thousand and they are not willing to pay more than that.

Many of our bureau chiefs are getting the same salary as a junior reporter in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, or even less. Because the administration of the channel thinks that by opening a bureau office in Quetta and having two or three reporters, we have paid our due to Balochistan. Some big channels only have a bureau office and two or three reporters. They run the bureau And they get the news of the entire Balochistan from it, so guess from this that National Media Balochistan is ignored in every way.

Caretaker Information Minister Jan Muhammad Achakzai said that advertisements are the primary source of revenue for TV channels in Pakistan. TV ratings determine the rates at which different channels would get advertisements. So, the entire electronic media is in a race for earning higher ratings. Ratings are measured by 1,100 rating meters which are installed in nine major cities of Pakistan. The trio of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad has over 800 rating meters installed in them. Unfortunately, there is not a single rating meter installed in Balochistan. Technically, it means that which channels people of Balochistan watch has no bearing on ratings. As a result, TV channels have no business interest in covering any issue about Balochistan due to the flawed mechanism of TV ratings in Pakistan. Caretaker Information Minister said, that media owners have taken this industry as a business and businessmen always deal on B-to-B basis. One of the main reasons is that we have presented it to the world He did not tell us that Balochistan is the gateway to the world.

Balochistan has all the resources that are not available in many countries of the world. But till date no one has marketed the way it should be.

PEMRA, the federal information ministry and the provincial information ministry have been asked for the monitoring information about the coverage of the Balochistan in main stream media through RTI letter but no response till now.