Media freedom under attack?

While the new government has been assuring the media of complete freedom, promising to disable Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority's (Pemra) powers to punish pesky private television channels, it seems to be heading towards a disastrous collision course with the free media.
A television channel claims that it has been told to stop airing programmes on the issue of reinstatement of judges, which has resulted in the withdrawal of PML (N) ministers from the federal cabinet and has kept the lawyers community and other sections of civil society in focus since March last year.
Some popular anchors as well as print media reporters and analysts also say they are being intimidated. A prominent talk show host has even named names. He has disclosed that he was recently given a plain warning by the PPP chairperson's right-hand man and Interior Advisor, Rehman Malik, who also spoke of his intention to deliver his own "punches" to counter the media's "punches".
Malik has denied this assertion. If the punches from the government side were to come in the form of rebuttals, those would only be welcome as healthy debate and discussion. But considering the latest allegation of an 'advice' to stop judiciary related programmes and to rein in some print media reporters and analysts from doing the same, the counter punches are unlikely to be in the spirit of a civilised, democratic debate.
It is deeply disturbing that the democratically elected government should adopt such a confrontation path with the media, whose duty it is to inform and educate the public on all issues of import. If the intention is to divert the public attention from the judges' restoration, things may snowball in utterly unpredictable ways.
As it is, independent television and print media have come into their own and are acutely conscious of public expectations and their responsibility to fulfil them as also their influence in shaping public opinion. It is no longer possible for any government to control them through coercive tactics and the old device of 'press advice'.
Even President Musharraf had found the limits of his military government's power strongly challenged when he tried to tell private channels to take certain 'irksome' anchors and analysts off the airwaves. Needless to say, a democratically elected government must depend on popular support. The present government could easily harm its own interest by trying to stop the media from explaining to the public the rights and wrongs of the issue at hand.
A large section of the country's population is engaged in a fight for what it sees as a fundamental question, ie, supremacy of the rule of law and the Constitution. To many others, it is about deciding, once and for all, the question, who has the right to rule, the people or the civil and military establishment? When such basic issues are being agitated, the media cannot remain a disinterested bystander.
The government leaders must learn to tolerate the opposing point of view, no matter how hostile, and to counter the same through the civilised method of argument. Highhanded tactics are not going to work in this day and age. At a time when the lawyers' community and the rest of civil society as well as the APDM parties, which boycotted the general election, are gearing to respond to the ruling alliance's failure to resolve the judges' restoration issue, media gag orders would further aggravate matters.
The economy can ill afford any large-scale disruptions. Hopefully, better sense would prevail, and the government would show respect to the media's right to inform and educate the public on a problem that has remained the main focus of their attention since March 2007.