KARACHI: Two-member delegation of Germany-based Deutsche Welle (DW) international broadcaster visited Karachi University (KU). DW Director of Programmes for Asia Debarati Guha and Head of urdu Department Adnan Ishaq visited KU Radio Station and TV newsroom established in KU Department of Mass Communication along with KU Vice Chancellor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi and chairperson MCD Dr Asmat Ara and other faculty members.

They appreciated television and radio labs and production work of students. Dr Asmat Ara briefed DW delegation about daily radio bulletin on-aired by KU MCD Radio 90.6 and students working on different projects in TV news lab.

Debarati Guha informed that DW, stationed in Bonn, Germany, aims to engage with young journalism students and provide them with valuable insights into DW’s work in Asia.

She said that they would like to give them perspective on journalistic ethics and standards and would like to discuss constructive journalism and opportunities at Deutsche Welle.

According to her, DW gets around 1.5 billion people views from different parts of world in month and she shared that DW focuses on promoting democratic values and traditions, free trade, justice, and cultural values.

She mentioned that they strive to be unbiased in broadcasts and provide unbiased analysis and mentioned that DW is providing programmes in different 11 languages in Asia. “We try to prioritize youth in our broadcasts and content, we want to promote culture of dialogue in society and our target group is mostly youth.”

Debarati Guha said that DW is not present in Iran and China due to media censorship issues, whereas in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India they face same issues as native media outlets, on other hand, they have not faced any problem during covering topics in Jakarta, Indonesia. She claimed that DW journalists meet international standards everywhere in world.

She observed that work of media is not to solve problems but to point them out. She added that earlier we were ahead in radio but now radio is slowly disappearing. We produce programmes in 32 languages worldwide and operate with over 4,000 employees around globe with people of 150 nationalities and have offices in 18 countries around world.

Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi said that local media also needs to ensure training and implementation of ethics. We have tried our best to keep communication department updated with help of technology and advanced curriculum. He informed audience that KU MCD has also introduced course related to social media marketing.

Published in The Daily National Courier, March, 05 2024

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