Abstract

The study aims to explore the image of the media as portrayed in leading English Pakistani newspapers. The objectives of the study are to analyze the framing of news concerning the religious minorities in three national dailies of Pakistan to determine either the Pakistani press portrays the minorities’ image positively or negatively. Content analysis was performed on three leading English dailies, The Dawn, The News and Express Tribune, after random selection from January 01, 2016, to December 31, 2016. The front, back and editorial pages were the sample size of the study. The findings of the study showed that the media portrayed minorities in a positive manner; however, the newspapers focused more on controversial issues such as forced conversions, attacks on places of worship, violations of the right to freedom and other human rights. Softer issues such as Political and Economic Empowerment and Improved Legislation were not covered as frequently. The need of giving more space to the education and entertainment need of minorities and to inform the majority about the positive contributions of minorities has also been found out during the study.

Key Words

Pakistani Press, Religious Minorities, Press and Minorities, Press and Society, Minorities in Pakistan

Introduction

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world with 207,774,520 total population as per census results in 2017 (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, n.d.).  Pakistan’s society is a diverse mixture of ethnic and religious minorities. These ethnic and religious minorities are living in different parts of the country. According to the 2017 census, religious minorities make 3.53% of the country’s population. This includes 4,444,437 Hindus; 2,637,586 Christians; 207,688 Ahmadiyyas; and 20,768 Sikhs. Other minorities such as Kalash, Jains, Buddhists, Parsi, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics comprise 20,767 people.

Pakistan became a member of the United Nations on September 30, 1947. Since then, Pakistan has been part of several human rights initiatives starting from UDHR in 1948 ("Universal Declaration of Human Rights", n.d.). Major Human rights conventions ratified by Pakistan include Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1996, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1996, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2008, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 2010, and United Nations Convention Against Torture in 2010 ("UN Treaty Body Database", n.d.).  These all commitments showed Pakistan is determined to protect the religious minority’s social, cultural, religious, economic and other rights. Since Pakistan has ratified these treaties, it has a legally binding responsibility to safeguard minority rights. As part of these obligations, Pakistan submits periodical progress reports to the relevant UN Bodies ("Human Rights Bodies", n.d.).

Founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, acknowledged the right to religious freedom of every Pakistani during his first address to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947 (G. Allana, 1969). Despite being an Islamic State, Pakistan’s Constitution recognizes the rights of minorities ("The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan", n.d.). Article 25 (1) recognizes all citizens as equal before the law and grants them equal legal protection. Article 33 compels the State to “discourage parochial, racial, tribal, sectarian and provincial prejudices among the citizens”. Minority rights have been covered from Articles 20 to 22 in the constitution of Pakistan. Despite the presence of these articles for minority rights, according to the critics, the constitutional law of Pakistan has rarely helped the minority because of the powers assigned to the Islamic Ideology Council, presence of Sharia Courts and blasphemy laws mentioned under the Pakistan Penal Code, which has been used to prosecute non-Muslims and the Muslim minority sects.

There’s a dearth of laws to safeguard the rights of minorities in Pakistan except for some legislations ("The Christian Marriage Act 1872", n.d.; “The Christian Divorce Act 1869", n.d.; “The Succession Act 1925”, n.d.; “The Hindu Law of Inheritance Act 1929”, n.d.; “Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1936”, n.d.; “The Hindu Marriage Act 2017”; and “The Sindh Hindu Marriage Act 2016”, n.d.). Over the last few year’s experts, civil society organizations, social activities proposed amendments in existing legislations; however, only one law regarding Hindu Marriage Act was amended. The recent developments in bonded labour laws in Pakistan also grant protection to minorities ("Bonded Labour in Pakistan", n.d.). Although minorities have not been directly mentioned in the laws over the years, they’ve been the main victims of this ill practice; therefore, implementation of these laws will grant them protection (Human Rights Watch, 1995).

Pakistan notified National Commission for Minorities in 2020 under the umbrella of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony (Ali, 2021). Formation of this commission has been met with great criticism from minorities who have a citied absence of Ahmadis, absence of lower caste Hindus, the inclusion of Muslim members, and lack of autonomy as major issues ("Minority body approved by cabinet ‘violates’ SC order | The Express Tribune", 2021; Mahmood, 2021; "Controversy over newly formed national minority commission in Pakistan", 2021).

Religious Minorities in Pakistan have the freedom to contest elections for general seats. However, to increase their representation, reserved seats have also been allotted in the National Assembly (Composition of National Assembly, n.d.), Senate (Composition of Senate, n.d.) and other provincial assemblies. In 2009, the government of Pakistan reserved 5 percent quota for minorities in government jobs (Recruitment, Appointment, Seniority and Promotion, n.d.).  However, there’s a general consensus in economic spheres that this quota hasn’t been met due to minority groups not having the required education and skills set because of fewer opportunities (Riudalbas Clemente, 2021; (National Commission for Human Rights, 2019).

Freedom of Speech has been recognized as a fundamental right of every Pakistani citizen in the constitution under Article 19 of the 1973 Constitution. Article 19A recognizes the right to information of all citizens and grants them “the right to have access to information in all matters of public importance subject to regulation and reasonable restrictions imposed by law” ("The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan", n.d.).

As a result of these articles, the following legislations have been passed in the country (“The Right of Access to Information Act, 2017”, n.d.; “The Balochistan Right to Information Act 2021”, n.d.; “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information Act 2013”, n.d.; “The Punjab Transparency and RTI Act 2013”, n.d.; “The Sindh Transparency and Right to Information Act 2016”, n.d.).

Media is widely regarded as a pillar of the State because of its power to inform the masses. The freedoms mentioned in Article 19 of the Constitution are not possible without Free Press. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statics, in 2019 total number of newspapers in Pakistan is 707, including local and regional press (Pakistan Press, Media, TV, Radio, Newspapers, n.d.). There are several presses related laws and code of conducts in Pakistan which defines rules and procedures for the press to play its role of informing, educating and entertaining the masses (Alam, 2015). The presence of these provisions and Under 19A calls for the need to examine whether media is playing its due role in providing holistic and human-centred coverage to minority issues in Pakistan or not. This study aims to explore “To what extent Pakistani press gives coverage to the news regarding the minorities? and How the news concerning the minorities are framed in national dailies of Pakistan?”.

Literature Review

The portrayal of Minorities in Western Media

A study conducted by examining print, electronic and online media from the United States in 2011 revealed that religion is covered in news only when it sparks some controversy (Liu, 2012). The study exposed that all top religious stories were related to controversial issues such as violent crimes committed in the name of religion, political debates on the role of religion in state affairs, and legislations targeted against some religious minorities. The study also mentioned that coverage of this news also went along with prevailing notions such as debating on extremist tendencies among Muslims rather than focusing on the act of violence itself.

A study analyzed the framing done by US Media in coverage of the 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting (Pere, 2013). The study revealed that not only mainstream media doesn’t cover religious topics as much as other social issues, the coverage is also merged with some other frame which, more often than not, is the dominant one. The study mentions that reporting of this coverage included the common frames used in breaking news and feature stories on religion; however, many reports included that Sikhs might have been targeted because of their resemblance with Muslims. Some newspapers focused on differences between Sikhs and Muslims despite the fact that the incident took place where Muslims and Sikhs have been residing for a considerable amount of time, and there was no need to inform the readers about the differences between the getups of followers of the two religions. The study concludes that extra focus on this frame of “mistaken identity” depicts “lack of awareness and appalling negligence on the part of reporters and news media sources”.

A study found that the conflict frame is the predominant frame used in newspapers’ coverage of religious topics in America (Buddenbaum, 1986). Another study mentions that viewing news from these frames eventually has an impact on audiences about other religions. (Stout & Buddenbaum, 2003).

According to Stuart Wright, these ‘negative’ frames occur due to lack of subject knowledge of media person, time and funds available to media person to investigate that story, type of sources interviewed, and the extent to which the particular religious group is featured on the publication, and whether the story is for frontpage or back page (Oldfield, 1997).

A study from the United States mentioned that although minorities have started to feature more in media, their portrayal is not yet ideal (Cort, 1987). Media portrayal of minorities in news and entertainment media forms the public’s opinion about them and enforces the stereotypes. Alongside increased coverage, there’s a need to give coverage to minority role models and discourage stereotypes existing in society.




The portrayal of Minorities in Pakistani Media

Research by the Center for Peace and Development Initiatives notes that Media related laws in Pakistan predated 19A of the Constitution of Pakistan; therefore, they must be aligned to embrace Freedom of Information as mentioned in the constitution (Alam, 2015). The research also calls to enforce the provisions related to the flow of information. Nevertheless, guidelines to ensure religious harmony and the rights of minorities are covered in several media laws in Pakistan.

A study on media’s portrayal of religious minorities in Pakistan interviewed minority leaders to formulate suggestions for media (Ali & Jalaluddin, 2010). The suggestions included giving proper coverage to religious festivals of minorities. Print media’s role in this regard has been critiqued as they don’t give proper coverage to religious festivals, especially Christmas, Holi and Easter. Mostly it is the smaller papers or internet publications that do this for areas where religious minorities reside, or the coverage is meant to appeal to the elite, for example, a Sindhi newspaper from interior Sindh reporting about a politician celebrating Holi. The study, therefore, recommends assigning trained reporters, preferably minority representatives, to cover their stories and publishing special periodicals on religious festivals to promote religious and sectarian harmony. Lack of reporting on the need of improving the infrastructure of temples and churches was also pointed out. The study also revealed the absence of Sikhs, Ahmadis and Paris from media stories other than blasphemy incidents.

A study of the representation of religious minorities in Indian and Pakistani Print media observed that there is an inadequate and prejudiced representation of religious minorities in print media of both countries (Batool, 2018). The Pakistani print media gives decent coverage to Christians, but biasedly ignores Hindus by remaining silent. Indian print media also gives decent coverage to Christians and Sikhs but gives negative coverage to Muslims. This treatment creates a social divide as media is a key pillar of the State and the media reports shape the public’s opinions regarding minority groups.

A 2018 study on Pakistan’s media conducted observed that the modernized media scene in Pakistan hasn’t proved much beneficial for the religious minorities (Alam et al., 2018). The study discovered that apart from Hindus and Christians, the religious minorities of Pakistan are invisible in media. The study found out that the majority of the coverage is focused on blasphemy and conversion stories which are covered in an insensitive and sensationalized manner. These stories ignore the ‘victim's point of view and often sways in the direction of popular narrative on that particular incident. An example is reporting on a nearly decade long Asia Bibi trial where media included voices of the preparators but blocked out the family and supports of the victim.

A study analyzed headlines of English and Urdu Pakistani newspapers on religious violence and highlighted several issues in reporting. The study found out that English newspaper goes with their own ideology while making the headlines rather than writing it according to the context. The Urdu newspapers mostly sensationalize the news, while the English newspapers often tone them down unnecessarily (Bukhari, 2015).

A study conducted in 2020 explored the procedures of electronic media in Pakistan and its regulatory body PEMRA regarding the coverage of the plight of Christians. The study releveled that media covers stories related to issues of Christians, but at the same time, it ignores many incidents as well. The study highlighted that entertainment media doesn’t give proper recognition to minorities (Joshua & Zia, 2020).

A private TV Channel has also been criticized for its Ramadan Transmissions covering religious issues. The host and participants belonging to majority dominations have incited hate speech on Muslim minority sects and other religious minorities (Voicepk, 2020; BBC News, 2017; (Dawn.com, 2018).

A study examined the portrayal of religious minorities in Pakistani Cinema. The study examined 30 films from 1963 to 2013 and revealed a negative portrayal of minorities (Khalid & Daudpoto, 2014). The movies have depicted minorities as anti-Pakistan, anti-Islam, Indian agents, terrorists, colonial agents, abusive elites, needlessly modernized and vulgar. Only one film Ramchand Pakistani focused on the actual issues faced by minorities, i.e. plight of lower caste Hindus living in border areas of Pakistan (Holden, 2010). Mehwish Hayat’s portrayal of a Parsi girl in the movie Actor in Law has also been praised by the critics, but they mentioned that the character itself could have been much better (Tribune, 2016).

An internet search on “Famous non-Muslims of Pakistan” has revealed that most of such articles have been covered by tabloid or entertainment sites (Rizvi, 2019; Gul, 2019). Dr Abdul Salam, Pakistan’s only Nobel Prize Winner, doesn’t feature on them because he belonged to Ahmadiyya Community.

Editorial published in DAWN newspaper questioned the government's handling of the proposed bill on Forced Marriages. The editorial mentioned that this issue is continuously discussed from the majority’s point of view. “Such an approach will further demoralize and alienate non-Muslims in the country and lead Pakistan further adrift from its international obligations” (Dawn, 2021). This editorial was published after the Ministry of Religious Affairs organized a meeting to discuss the bill in which religious minorities were excluded. During the meeting, the clerics and ministry officials claimed that “there was no forced conversion in the country and most of the cases related to love affairs between individuals” (K. Ali, 2021). Such coverage of this issue has done been done by English newspapers only, and in response, they receive hate speech in comments.

Not all studies reveal a negative portrayal of minorities in media. A study found that the media representation and depiction of minority gatherings in two noteworthy Urdu daily papers of Pakistan was generally positive (Ali, 2004). A 2014 study reveals that minorities were portrayed in a positive light in Pakistan’s print media, most noticeably Dawn, The News and The Nation, from 2009 to 2011 (Ambreen, 2014). However, the study also revealed that almost entire coverage is related to controversial issues such as blasphemy and conversion incidents. There’s no coverage of social topics such as festivals, education and employment etc.

Similar findings have been reported in a study on Pakistan’s TV Channels and portrayal of minorities. The study revealed that minorities had been portrayed fairly on TV Programs; however, the channels aren’t doing enough to promote harmony between the religions and sects (Mubeen & Qusien, 2017).

The media’s lack of coverage on minorities can’t be termed as anti-minority because of complex ground realities. The World Press Freedom Index 2020 by Reporters without Borders ranks Pakistan as 145th safest place for a journalist out of 180 countries (Reporters without Borders, 2020). A study interviewed five online newspapers to find the reaction they face from the public for reporting on religious minorities (Rehmat & Alam, 2019). The respondents mentioned that they face intimidations, vulgar and profane comments, and labels of anti-state whenever they report on minority and human rights stories. These threats are given by individuals, religious and political outfits. Similar challenges have been reported in other studies conducted with media personnel reporting on human rights issues, religious issues and terrorism (International Media Support, 2009; Ul Hassan et al., 2020; Reporters without Borders, 2018). The lack of visibility of minority-operated media is because of similar reasons. Christian owned TV Channels of Pakistan have reported that they remain selective and fearful in their operations due to backlash from the majority (Deutsche Welle, 2021).

Methodology

The study aimed to analyze the Pakistani press coverage towards religious minorities. It examined and explored how religious minority’s issues are presented in Pakistan’s leading newspapers, how proportion and placement of the coverage of religious minorities’ issues in leading English newspapers, how the Pakistani press portrays the religious minorities across the country. 

Random sampling method technique for research. The top three read newspapers from Pakistan, i.e. The Dawn from The Dawn Group, Express Tribune from Express Group and The News from The Jang Group, were examined for this study. All selected three newspapers have a good reputation in Pakistan for covering the all-important issues of the country and world. These newspapers have large numbers of qualified, specialized in their teams in the shape of reporters, editors and photographers. These three newspapers have a healthy competition to raise the issues, get attention, formation of public opinion and set the agenda for the public and policymakers in the country.  In this study, the researcher will examine that what was the stance of these three leading newspapers towards religious minority’s issues in Pakistan.   

All the hard and soft and follow up news related to religious minorities published on the front, city, national, opinion pages and back pages of the selected newspapers from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2016, were analyzed for this study.  

According to the demand and nature of this research, content analysis methodology was used. Content analysis is mostly used for media and communication researches because it is very effective and resourceful for analyzing the media messages content.  The study has also utilized Framing analysis which has been part of many studies conducted on religion and religious minorities (Pere, 2013). Other studies mentioned that viewing news from these frames eventually has an impact on audiences about other religions (Buddenbaum, 1986; Oldfield, 1997; Stout & Buddenbaum, 2003). Agenda setting theory is another interlinked theory to the current inquiry because framing is used as a tool in setting the agenda for the audience.

For this study, the researcher used the quantitative analysis methodology. To know how many news stories were published, what was the length of a news story, what is the frequency? After getting these details, the researcher used the qualitative approach as well to analyze the angle of content, especially in editorial and opinion articles. The complete content of news stories was selected as a coding unit for content analysis. The content of news stories was counted in terms of positive, negative and neutral. For sample, if the text of news stories, editorials, and opinion articles are in favor of protection and promotion of religious minorities’ issues, it was considered as positive. If the text of news stories angling or portraying threats for religious minorities was considered as negative. If the news stories content related to religious minorities is not favorable or unfavourable, it was considered neutral. The complete content of each relevant news story, opinion articles, editorial and pictures are the contextual unit of analysis for this study. Words and placement of stories were counted, and the length of news stories was measured to know the number of words. Those news stories had photos; the space of pictures had also been measured to examine the importance of news given by newspapers.

The research used the SPSS software for data analysis. Only relevant and valid samples were considered for final analysis. The Only valid and complete samples had been made a part of the final analysis.

Discussion

The stories covered on religious minorities dominantly fall in eight categories: Promoting Religious Freedom, Highlighting the need to protect Social and Cultural Rights, Attacks on Places of Worship, Covering demands for Political Rights, Forced Conversion Stories, General Issues related to Human Rights, Covering demands for Economic Rights and Highlighting the need for improved legislation.

The most important finding of this study is that the top three English newspapers of Pakistan covered minorities in a positive manner. Dawn (86%) gave the most positive coverage to minorities, followed by The News (83%) and Express Tribune (81%). These findings are in line with the 2014 study conducted, which examined Dawn, The News and The Nation published from 2009 to 2011(Ambreen, 2014) and the 2010 study which examined Dawn, and The Nation published in 2005 (Ali & Jalaluddin, 2010).

A major percentage of the coverage is comprised of Hard News, i.e. fact-based reporting. Express Tribune lead the way with 82% of its total coverage being hard news, followed by Dawn with 77% and the news with 76%. However, Dawn published 28 more hard news than Express Tribune; therefore, it remained a hard-hitting publication as far as minority issues are concerned. The majority of the hard news was positive. While this shows a positive trend, it also reinforces findings of previous studies which mentioned that minority stories picked by media mostly contain incidents of violence or human rights violations in which there’s little room to cover the story objectively or portray minorities negatively (Mubeen & Qusien, 2017; Ambreen, 2014; Ali & Jalaluddin, 2010).

A small percentage of soft news, i.e. opinions, features reinforce the findings of previous studies that media only covers minorities only in controversial issues which appear in the headlines momentarily and then disappear with time because of little to no follow up. In this regard, the findings are in line with the results of past studies (Joshua & Zia, 2020; Batool, 2018; Alam et al., 2018); Mubeen & Qusien, 2017; Ambreen, 2014; Liu, 2012; and Ali & Jalaluddin, 2010).

A higher percentage of negative coverage in the Soft News category is also a key finding of this study. 21% of soft news published in Dawn were negative. This percentage falls to 10% in case of hard news. 44% of soft news published in The News were negative. This percentage falls to 12% in case of hard news. 62% of soft news published in Express Tribune were negative. This percentage falls to 7% in case of hard news. Overall, 39% of soft news were negative compared to 8% in the case of hard news. This indicates that when the media is not reporting about incidents, it tends to go with the majority’s opinions. This is supported by the fact that Dawn is read mostly by foreigners and elites, whereas The News and Express Tribune are mostly read by educated middle-class Pakistanis who form a major chunk of Pakistanis familiar with the English language. This finding is in coherence with a previous study (Bukhari, 2015).

The average length of positive and negative and soft and hard news articles was almost the same for all three newspapers. This is because news related to religious minorities are usually given designated portions on designated pages. This finding hints at the claims of Traditional agenda-setting studies that the media tell us not what to think but what to think about (OpenLibrary.org, 2020), as well as second-level agenda setting theorists who suggest that the media tell us how to think about issues (McCombs et al., 1997). However, this requires further analysis.

The sources contacted and interviewed for publishing minority issues is also important. The three newspapers examined in the study heavily relied on private sources for the stories published regarding minority affairs. The results show that most of the stories that officials don’t want to comment on minority affairs or ignore the matter altogether. The topic of Forced Conversions is an example where only 10 stories were obtained from official sources compared to 90 from private and 10 from other sources. This is in line with incidents such as a meeting organized by the Ministry of Religious Affairs to discuss the bill on Forced Conversions in 2021. During the meeting, the clerics and ministry officials claimed that “there was no forced conversion in the country and most of the cases related to love affairs between individuals” (K. Ali, 2021). It is therefore understandable that reporters will rely on private sources to cover the incident. The only category where the percentage of official sources was higher is ‘Attack on Places of Worship’. This is also understandable because, in such factorial incidents, police, local government officials and provincial and federal ministers are ‘forced’ to give their stance.

The three newspapers examined in the search relied on the stories by Pakistani. The ratio of the stories reported by foreign reporters is very low than the stories reported by Pakistani reporters. This rejects the popular notion that English newspapers are working on foreign agenda by including write-ups of foreigners are writing on minority issues in Pakistan to malign Pakistan’s image. This finding is in line with past studies (Ul Hassan et al., 2020; Rehmat & Alam, 2019; Reporters Without Borders, 2018; International Media Support, 2009), which highlighted that media wants to report the issues of religious minorities but face intimidations, vulgar and profane comments, and labels of anti-state whenever they report on minority and human rights stories.

Conclusion

On the basis of the findings, it is concluded that the issue of religious minorities is portrayed positively by the three leading English daily newspapers in Pakistan Dawn, The News and Express Tribune. However, it should be noted that these newspapers used dominant framing by focusing more on controversial issues such as forced conversions, attacks on places of worship, violations of the right to freedom and other human rights. Softer issues such as Political and Economic Empowerment and Improved Legislation were not covered as frequently. The coverage of softer issues was slightly negative, and only Dawn, which has a decent proportion of foreign-based readers, wrote about these issues in a more positive manner.

The study also supported previous studies which have highlighted the need of giving more space to the education and entertainment need of minorities and to inform the majority about the positive contributions of minorities. The general perception that only foreigners report minority rights violations in Pakistan has been rejected as most of the stories written were produced by local reporters. The study further supports the point of view of civil society that government doesn’t take minority rights issues seriously as the majority of the sources from which the news was obtained were private. The study backs the opinion of media that they want to report more on minority rights violations; however, they face verbal and physical threats when reporting on human rights issues, religious issues and terrorism.

In the light of the current study, the media is advised to improve reporting on Pakistan’s International and National Commitments towards the rights of Religious Minorities. Media groups should increase the hiring of reporters and media personnel from religious minorities and provide them adequate training to reduce sensationalism and to produce human-centric stories. The media should also follow Up stories on incidents of human rights violations. To promote religious harmony, feature stories on role models and celebrities belonging to minorities is required, along with a Zero tolerance policy towards trolls and hate speech against all minorities on websites and social media sites.

The government is advised to increased protection for journalists covering human rights and minority rights issues and adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards individuals and anchors promoting speech against all minorities through print, electronic and social media. All minority issues related debates should be made public, and it should be mandatory for representatives to respond to questions on minority rights issues in a professional and humanistic manner.

Websites of newspapers such as Dawn and Express Tribune have become the major source of information in recent years. Readers take more interest in them compared to print versions because these sites are updated in real-time and allow the readers to comment. Replicating the same methodology on websites can give a better picture of the media portrayal of religious minorities. This is because such a study can examine any changes in the first draft and updated version of the articles to find the seriousness of the effort put by the publication in drafting news on minorities. Furthermore, the comments can be analyzed to see the extent of hate speech and response of the publication (any increase or decrease in coverage in future). The same frames can be used to conduct a study on Television programs such as political talk shows because TV is a key medium of information and shapes up opinions of the public. In the case of Television, the duration of programs can be included.

The major limitation of the present research study is that it only focuses on the English newspapers of Pakistan. It might be possible that Urdu newspapers portray the different images of minorities. Investigating this is important because English newspapers often get the blame for being anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam. Therefore in order to examine whether the media wants to report on minority rights and whether the media portrayal of minorities is positive, Urdu newspapers should be included in the city, which wasn’t possible due to time and resource limitations. Moreover, the researcher didn’t select the articles published on websites of same newspapers.

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