Do your homework, civil society!

Najam Sethi, chief editor The Friday Times, during the Q&A session. “First your assumptions must change! Don’t fool yourself! We are no heroes. First we have to pay salaries, run our companies and make profit for the shareholders.” Describing media in this way, award winning journalist and chief editor of The Friday Times, Najam Sethi, opened the eyes of members of the civil society. All of them working for a betterment of Pakistan and being a cooperation partner of Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF) they discovered much about the media scene in their own country. Most of all they learned that civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can find a partner for democracy in the media, but not a supporter. Thus,
TV anchor Tauseeq Haider gives tips and hints it is up to the society and the citizens to commit themselves on this right path of democracy and to establish good links with the newspaper, radio stations, and TV alike.

Backed by professionals in photography, radio and TV as well as in PR, FNF partners professionalized within a three days workshop. Learning by doing was the motto this training in Lahore: Teaching and experiencing visualization, games in communication, photo exercise, writing of press releases, speeches in front of the camera, and so on kept the civil society activists busy during the weekend until the late evening. While TV anchorman Tauseeq Haider, Managing Director Black Box sounds, gave tips for standing in front of the camera, FNF Resident Representative Olaf Kellerhoff demonstrated some hints for standing behind it: “It’s the man behind the gun who counts. It’s not the camera!” he persuaded his audience. “What is in your head is decisive for a photo. Or have you ever asked a poet which typewriter he uses?” But it was Haider who asked to look for the camera – for other reasons: “Have a look at it before recording! Get familiar with it. This lessens the fear and the stage
Visit to Nafees A. Bazmi, editor of Inqilab freight.”

From electronic media to print: PR expert Khawar Azhar (www.crspakistan.com) started analyzing newspapers. Structure, content and begin were looked upon, while it is the Unique Selling Point (USP) which makes the difference between the organisations. Thus, well prepared the activists formulated press releases, background information, and articles. With individual feedback everybody could improve significantly.

Additionally, informative visits and question & answer sessions at two Lahore-based
Analyzing newspapers with PR expert Khawar Azhar newspapers including a printing press turned out to be very helpful for further understanding of the media. The future PR managers started already linking up with their media counterparts.
Thus, well prepared, the FNF partners returned home to their work place, i.e. civil society organizations. Now, it’s time for them to put the newly learned PR into practice as they can not expect from the media to strengthen democracy. Accordingly Najam Sethi recommended: “[…] if you want to get access to us, ask us to sell your products, please make them exciting! [...] Do your homework!“

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