THE ISSUES OF JOURNALISTS IN SINDH PROVINCE, PAKISTAN: ROLE OF JOURNALISTIC UNIONS IN SUKKUR DIVISION

Abstract

Alike other parts of the world, journalists are facing various issues including financial, physical and job security in Pakistan. Besides some unions are working to extend their support to resolve these problems. Numerous studies have been carried out on the issues of journalists and the role of unions across world but few of them have investigated this topic in Pakistan. In the case of Sindh province, very few scholars have worked on this, whereas no study has been conducted on the topic in Sukkur division, Sindh province. Keeping in view this, researcher has designed this study to inspect the relationship between union membership (UM) and Censoring News (CN), Confiscation of Equipment’s (CE), Excessive Restrictions (ER) & Psychological Distress (PD) for journalists working in the Sukkur division of Sindh province of Pakistan. The quantitative methodology has been employed. The questionnaire has been adopted from Reporters without Borders (RSF) with some changes to collect the data. The Stata software was used to analyze the data. So, study found a link between union membership and Censoring News (CN), Confiscation of Equipment’s (CE), Excessive Restrictions (ER) & Psychological Distress (PD). It further validates that if anyone is a member of the union, the union would extend the support to their members in ensuring journalists from Censoring News, safeguarding of professional equipment’s of journalists, decreasing instances excessive restriction, reducing psychological distress among their members.