Beat reporters and desk editors at the leading English and Urdu newspapers in Pakistan are reluctant to publish news stories without receiving some sort of gift or reward. The monopoly corrupt journalists exercise over the profession constitutes a challenge for all media practitioners, because their influential positions make it hard for others to do their jobs properly. In order to receive attention on press clippings, NGOs and multinationals resort to bribing journalists. For the sake of news coverage, every organisation has a special budget specifically dedicated to this purpose.

These practices are possible because journalists receive negligible salaries and several organisations fail to pay their reporters altogether, due to the financial crunch or simply as a result of poor management in the newspaper or media house.