 Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem and As-Salaamu Alaykum Ladies and Gentlemen, today we are back with corporate governance and we are proceeding with our journey and the journey is basically to understand the implications of the press in relation to the different stakeholders and the different shareholders. What we have been seeing in the past is that the press has a very fundamental role because it basically acts as an external accountability institution or as an external whistleblower. It provides indirect and implied protection to the internal whistleblowers and also to the internal employees and it tends to project those issues and those items which are pushed under the carpet and are not being addressed by the management or by the board of directors and then the press does investigative journalism and then tries to understand what is happening and how all of that is particularly happening and then what we see is that the press basically acts as a bridge between the government, the regulators and the board of directors and the management and the employees and also in between tends to encapsulate the different shareholders. Now what we see is that in this whole process there are different possibilities and different opportunities and some are positive and some are negative and another very important dimension is that when the press becomes selective or when the press becomes discriminatory or biased then ladies and gentlemen we talk about a very important issue which is called selective coverage. Now selective coverage is the topic of today and we are going to see how this tends to reinforce or undermine a particular organization and its board of directors and management because this is what is being seen that with the advent and the further nurturing of the different media their role is expanding and increasing with every passing day. Now when we are looking at selective coverage ladies and gentlemen then the critical issue in media coverage is the credibility of the information. So again there is a lot of news and there is real news and there is fake news. So that distinction has to be done that which is the real news and which is the fake news and media should be avoiding the fake news but unfortunately now fake news is more than the real news and to authenticate all of that and then to understand its very simplifications is a very colossal endeavoring all together. The issue of credibility is particularly delicate because it opens up the question of newspapers incentives to conduct further investigation. So again the whole issue of credibility or reputation is at the forefront of media coverage and again enables the organization to move forward through investigative journalism or tend to backtrack and then it is very important that whatever information which is being shared on any of the media coverages it has to be authenticated by some gentleman source and the media is responsible to ensure that it is able to extricate the real factual information. Newspapers do have an incentive to enter into side deals with the parties involved and be paid for not to reveal damaging information. So this is also done that sometimes newspapers tend to blackmail institutions and they extricate money for not publishing a particular information or a particular post that's to increase over the whole future advertising revenues in exchange for stories that reflect well or badly on company management. So this is another thing this is a tool which is in the hand of the management and because a lot of money is usually spent on advertising then through advertising the management can channelize its revenue to those media platforms which are more conducively and positively inclined to the organization and this itself tends to create a whole process of manipulation and exploitation which should be avoided at all costs. So again it could be increasing or withholding advertising revenues and it could be based upon reflecting well or badly on the company management and therefore this bias, discrimination, favoritism and if we stretch it corruption is very detrimental to the whole relationship of the press with the other stakeholders and again tends to undermine the press as a whole and can have many repercussions at the end of the day and that is what we basically are trying to understand. One of the premise where the newspapers have credibility and thus avoid side deals for fear of losing it. So good reputation newspapers like for example in Pakistan we have done tend to uphold the right news and not go into fake news because they have a high level of credibility and they don't want to lose it. Another is where the newspapers do not have credibility and happily accept rives not to publish damaging news. So the smaller newspapers as we see the evening newspapers that we have over here in Pakistan they tend to have sensationalism focused news and there are even some national newspapers unfortunately who basically are spreading different information based upon sensationalism and based upon that sensationalism they tend to blackmail different situations and individuals which is absolutely abhorrent and has to be curtailed from the very grassroots level because otherwise the press as the fourth pillar of state would be compromised and that would have many negative repercussions because then the elite would further exploit and move forward in whatever they are doing. The factors which determine which equilibrium prevails are the competitive environment in which the newspapers operate, the ownership structure of the media and libel laws. So we see that these three points are very, very important and when we talk about libel laws then in Pakistan we don't have the tort law being practiced as per se but now with the passage of time and the globalization even the law of tort or the law of damages is being practiced in Pakistan. We also have under the Pakistan Penal Code section 499 to 501 which basically deals with libel issues and then besides that a person can also institute a case of damages against the press or against the reporter or against anyone who is damaging and bringing to distribute and individuals or a organizational credibility or reputation. So there are libel laws, there is media structure that again they are being regulated by their own associations like the all Pakistan newspaper society, like the council for Pakistan newspaper editors. Then there could be government regulated bodies which basically are the censorship boards which are PEMRA which again is about electronic media and the Ministry of Information and the role of the direct general of public relations. All of them tend to ensure that a positive equilibrium is maintained and the credibility of the whole sector is not compromised. We further see that demand considerations also lead to a selective focus on stories with a wider interest such as executive compensation levels. Readers may not be able to appreciate the nuances of corporate situations leading to new stories that simplify firm performance. So again this sensationalism, this storytelling can have positive results or negative results and therefore it is very important for the betterment of the whole media sector and also the sanctity of the reporting organization that everything is factual and they should not be moving on to sensationalism just to get a quick buck or to get millions of reviews in a very short time and that is again very sad that such things are being practiced and people are being exploited out of all of this. So this is extremely important. The demand for corporate governance, news might depend on the structure of the corporate ownership and the media selectively reduces the cost of acquiring and verifying information. So again what we are seeing is that through the media the acquisition of information and verifying it has gone down because everything is now digital and electronic and then secondly what we see is that the structure of the corporate ownership also depends upon that and their interface with the management and the rest of the employees and the shareholders is dependent upon what the media is basically projecting. This information is crucial in shaping the reputation of the key players who determine corporate policy. Only concerns about the public image would explain the responsiveness of corporate directors to environmental issues. So nowadays what we see ladies and gentlemen is that environment is a major issue and damaging the environment is actually encapsulated as corruption and therefore there is a great need to control all of the environmental factors and also the environmental fallout within the organizations. And basically we see that the media plays a very critical role over here because if they tend to find out through videos, through pictures, through interface or through disclosure then all of that becomes public and that can have immense consequences for any organization. The more diffuse the press is in a country the more companies are responsive both to environmental issues and to minority shareholder concerns. So again what we see is that if the press is widespread and is well entrenched and is basically diffused then as a consequence what we see is that the corporate response towards environmental issues and minority shareholder concerns tends to increase and then vice versa if it tends to decrease then all of it tends to slide down. So therefore keeping a balance and how many in all of this is extremely important and when we are talking about selective press then we should ensure that it should be more changed towards the positive side rather than the negative side and no one should be damaged or lose credibility or reputation just based upon hearsay. And there has to be authentication of all the information which is coming in and the press has to decide to move towards what is the truth and how it is being represented in the best possible way without compromising any of the stakeholders or the shareholders. Thank you so much.