The Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) on Thursday unanimously elected the following office-bearers for year 2012-13: Jamil Athar Qazi (President); Shaheen Qureshi (Senior Vice-President); Aamer Mahmood (Secretary General); Ghulam Ali Chandio (Joint Secretary) and Mushtaq Ahmed Qureshi (Finance Secretary); Rehmat Ali Razi (Vice-President-Punjab); Dr Waqar Yousaf Azeemi (Vice-President-Sindh); Ijaz-ul-Haq (Vice-President-Islamabad); Tahir Farooq (Vice-President, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and Waseem Ahmad (Vice-President-Balochistan).
Meanwhile, it has been resolved by the general body of the CPNE that no stone will be left unturned for making Pakistan in line with the teachings and ideas of Quaid-e-Azam. Any ideas against the founder of the country would be fought tooth and nail. The CPNE members also resolved to protect freedom of the press at all costs as enshrined in the Constitution.
The annual general body meeting of the CPNE also demanded of the Federal Government to review its centralised media policy as it has created serious financial crisis for regional and metropolitan B newspapers and periodicals. The meeting expressed its fear that if this policy is not immediately withdrawn, it will make hundreds of newspapers impossible to survive and render thousands of journalists jobless which would cause irreparable loss to the national journalism.-PR