Coverage of Government and Judiciary Relationship: A Study of Urdu and English Newspapers of Pakistan

Abstract

This present study analyzes the role played by the media during the controversy between Government of Pakistan and its Supreme Court in 2012. This study is particularly focused on the issues pertinent to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case. It employed content analysis as research study and quantitatively examined the columns in the Pakistani newspapers; including, Dawn and Daily Jang for the one year time period in the year 2012. A conflicting relationship has been found between the government and judiciary concerning the National reconciliation ordinance (NRO). It was concluded that Dawn and Daily Jang, both newspapers, follow the same agenda about the NRO issue as both of these newspapers offered negative coverage of this issue. Compared to Jang, Dawn was more inclined to the negative framing of judiciary, and Jang was inclined to the negative reporting of government performance. Hence, the Pakistani Print media has framed the issues negatively between the government and the judiciary. Frequent negative slants were observed in Urdu newspaper as compared to English newspaper.