p- ISSN: 2708-2105 p- ISSN: 2709-9458 L-ISSN: 2708-2105 DOI: 10.31703/gmcr.2021(VI-I).16 | Vol. VI, No. I (Winter 2021) URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.31703/gmcr.2021(VI-I).16 | Pages: 209 – 229 Do International News Agencies Set the Agenda of Pakistani English Newspapers? A Critical Analysis of Three English Dailies of Pakistan Lubna Shaheen * Muhammad Naseem Anwar † Rashid Ishaq ‡ Abstract: The aim of this study is to measure the reliance of the Headings Pakistani English press on international news agencies. Quantitative content analysis was done to see the level of reliance. A ten-year • Introduction period has been selected for analysis starting from 9/11. International pages of three English newspapers were selected. The • Literature Review results indicated that there is very small contribution of the • Methodology newspapers in the case of international news content, they mostly rely on foreign content and publish the same. Pakistani newspapers • Research Questions hardly try to appoint their correspondents and resultantly they have • Analysis to copy the same content available by international news agencies e.g., AP, AFP & Reuter. The study considered the theory of media • Conclusion imperialism and the results endorse the age-old central verses • References peripheral relationship with developed countries and the developing nations which still persist. Key Words: Developed Countries, Developing Nations, Foreign Content, Media Imperialism, Peripheral Introduction South Asian nations cover a good part of the overtly uni-polar world, centering the US, the globe; that is why happenings and events global media follows a different trend in their occurring across the Muslim world catch portrayal of news stories. The free flow of attention from media across the globe. In an information and the advancements in * Assistant Professor, Department of Higher Education, Government of the Punjab, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. † Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Rawalpindi Woman University Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan. Email: [email protected] ‡ Lecturer, Department of JMC, Kohat University of Science and Technology Kohat, KP, Pakistan. Citation: Shaheen, L., Anwar, M. N., & Ishaq, R. (2021). Do International News Agencies Set the Agenda of Pakistani English Newspapers? A Critical Analysis of Three English Dailies of Pakistan. Global Mass Communication Studies Review, VI(I), 209-229. https://doi.org/10.31703/gmcr.2021(VI-I).16 Lubna Shaheen, Muhammad Naseem Anwar and Rashid Ishaq communication technologies are the newspapers’ staff does not contribute anything dominant doctrines of today’s life. The global to the development of news (Johnston, 2011). press contributes toward internationalization This reliance on the foreign press is and constructs influential global news agenda. overwhelming as Paterson (2005) noted that Global media provide information that online news is the “de facto duopoly of enables the national media to think globally. Associated Press and Reuters”. Arya (2011) Many people in developing countries think concluded that “Times of India and Hindustan that the foreign press defines globalization as Times having a near-total dependence on westernization by setting western ideologies as international news agencies”. Lewis (2008) to be taken as norms by the national news found that “UK media are highly dependent providers (Boyd-Barrett, 2000). Though there on national and international news agencies are hundreds of globally influential media out- for news contents”. Shaheen (2014) concluded lets, yet the most powerful and visible out-lets in the study on the news published on are located in the United States. The most international pages of three newspapers are prominent among them are Washington Post, near complete replication of the original Los Angeles Times, and Christian Monitor etc. stories taken from the news feed of These newspapers services are also used by the international news wires, with a very minimal national print media of Pakistan. original contribution by the most highly The global press holds a monopoly over acclaimed newspapers of Pakistan. Johnston news production; the major news content is &Forde says that “this phenomenon of provided by the transnational news-press. This borrowed news leading to an even greater content is most of the times published without reliance on news agency copy than perhaps at any changes in the text in the national press of any other time in news media history”. developing countries (Arya, 2011). Different “Breaking news in online newspapers is researchers called and named this type of news synonymous with wire service copy” (Johnston material as “secondhand news” (Xie & Cooper- & Forde, 2009). Transnational news wires set Chen, 2008), “journalistic plagiarism” (Lewis the agenda through the selection of stories and et al., 2008), “copied material” (Arya, 2011), the amount of visual they present to the “recycled news” (Frijters &Velamuri, 2009), recipient of both press and electronic media “news borrowing” (Xie & cooper-Chen, 2008) (Paterson, 2007). and “ready-made news” (Bredemeier-Garson, Such kind of excessive copied and 2008), syndicated news influence and affect the “Churnalism” a term introduced by Davis national media as noted by Johnston; it is (2008), presents kind journalism in which argued that the influence comes at two levels, news stories are taken from news agencies and first with regard to the choice of news stories published in newspapers of recipient nations and their different slant by the global press and without further research or contribution. In second with regard to the selection of stories short, the kind of journalism that presents by their clients, i.e., media groups in terms of news stores taken from foreign media to its “follow up, reproduce with limited follow up own newspapers without altering it. Hence the or replicate word to word without the 210 Global Mass Communication Review (GMCR) Do International News Agencies Set the Agenda of Pakistani English Newspapers? A Critical Analysis of Three English Dailies of Pakistan contribution of their own journalists” (2011). the issues to which journalists are loyal, they Besova quoted Lippmann that the only forget journalistic values and become connection with the outer world is the media, ‘subordinate’ to their interests. The paper we don’t experience reality, and we rely on concludes that journalists also show disloyalty media for the construction of reality (2006). It towards a few international issues. is the media that provide us with the Mitra (2015) studied the news routines information about the war on terror and other and dependence of Indian newspapers on events which happen in the outer world international news agencies, mainly AFP, AP (Besova, 2006). Paterson noted that discourses &Reuters. He applied content analysis on on international events are determined by two foreign pages of ‘The Times of India’, the transnational agencies, i.e., Reuters and AP major English published from Hyderabad. The (2007). The CEO associated press Thomas universe of the study was one month from 1st Curley called these news agencies as ‘unseen to 30th Sep 2014, when India was going players of world landscape’ (Johnston & Forde, through major political and economic change. 2011). The main concern of the study was to see the Few media out-lets have their own newspaper’s selection criteria of news, the network of correspondents, and this is the number of news covered by each news wire main reason news agencies made their and which country was covered by which news contribution as providers of news content to agency. The study found that the news flow is the national media news agencies have the unequal, mainly from developed to edge of deciding which issues to be selected underdeveloped countries, which gives an and how they will be portrayed. They have the advantage to the western states to control and opportunity to build media agenda (Giffard & set the news agenda for the remaining world. Leuven, 2008). Thussu and Boyd-Barrett found “The increasing commodification of news from the literature on news wires that there are implies that the news created by the first world different types of bias that can affect their is sold to content starved markets in the coverage; the main is qualitative, which developing world increasing their includes a political, social and foreign policy of dependency, handicapping their economies, the country in which the news wires operate, and influencing public opinions”. and the other is quantitative which means the As effectively examined earlier, Reuters, selection of certain issues ignoring the others. Associated Press (AP), and Agence France- Presse (AFP) are the major three offices of the Literature Review world press. They manage the news stream in The paper by Nossek (2004) was based on the their household markets, as well as the world basic assumptions of the theoretical over. Almost all developing nations are reliant perspective that how the international foreign on them for the supply of world news. The media portray others versus ours. The frameworks in these international news offices journalists’ loyalty and disloyalty matter in are exceptionally productive in news covering the issues. The research argues that to assembling and additionally presentation of news, and this has given them an edge to Vol. VI, No. I (Winter 2021) 211 Lubna Shaheen, Muhammad Naseem Anwar and Rashid Ishaq combine their business sector positions in and additionally implies