QUETTA: Balochistan is ready for legislation for media houses to make online payments of salaries to reporters, sub-editors and other employees, said the Chief Minister`s Adviser on Information Sardar Raza Baraich on Sunday. He said the federal governament and other provinces should take similar steps.

Spealcing at the concluding session of a dialogue hosted by the Coalition for Ethical Journalism and Rozan, a non-government organisation, he said there was a `mafia involved in getting government advertisements for dummy newspapers` in connivance with `black sheep in government departments`.

He agreed that by making online payment of salaries, two things would be on record the number of employees at a media house and payment of minimum wages to journalists.

`Online payment of salaries will help in exposing those who are running dummy newspapers without any staff but getting government advertisements,` he said, adding that it wouldalso reveal how much a media house paid a sub-editor or reporter.

He said most media houses did not arrange professional training for subeditors, reporters, copywriters, assignment editors and news directors and as a result they did not keep media ethics in mind when working on a news.

Sardar Baraich said government employees should not be allowed to work as full-time journalists.

MPA Samina Khan Marwat said the mainstream media, especially private TV channels, were not following the principles of ethical journalism.