Removal in 1999: Exploring bias in press

Abstract

Press plays an important role in promoting democracy. Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy in which political parties are central to the system but, because of the repeated interventions in the system, the press had to work under pressure in our country. The last removal of a political government took place on 12 October 1999. This article aims to find through content analysis how the national newspapers covered the removal of the government, and whether there was pro 12/10/1999 action bias in the newspapers in the form of giving more stories related to corruption and bad governance of the deposed government and less stories related to criticism of the action and calls for democracy, and using their own sources and special cells for news stories. Political economy of media, agenda setting, framing and news bias constitute the theoretical framework for this article. The findings show that the newspapers did not adopt a pro-action bias in their coverage of 12/10/1999. –––––––––