Associated Press of Pakistan (APP)

The Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) is Pakistan’s federal state news agency. It traces its origins to the news service operating in Pakistan at independence in 1947, initially under a trust. The federal government took over the agency in 1961 under the Associated Press of Pakistan (Taking Over) Ordinance. On 19 October 2002, it was reconstituted as the Associated Press of Pakistan Corporation (APPC) by Ordinance LXXX of 2002. APP itself dates its service to 1947, while historical accounts commonly distinguish the formal organisation of the separate Pakistani agency after independence.

Media assets

News agency: APP (regular English- and Urdu-language wires, supported by translation and regional-language services in Chinese, Arabic, Sindhi, Siraiki, Pashto, Balochi and Brahvi)

Ownership and governance

APP is constituted as a federal statutory corporation rather than as a shareholding company. The Associated Press of Pakistan Corporation Ordinance 2002 establishes it as a body corporate with perpetual succession and the power to hold and dispose of property. It operates under the administrative control of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and its budget is subject to federal government approval.

The Ordinance provides for an 11-member Board of Directors chaired by the Secretary of the ministry responsible for information. Its other members are:

• the Managing Director of APP;
• the Managing Director of Pakistan Television Corporation;
• the Director General of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation;
• the Principal Information Officer;
• the President of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors;
• the Financial Adviser of the Information Ministry;
• the heads of the mass-communication departments at the University of the Punjab and the University of Karachi; and
• two private-sector media figures nominated by the Prime Minister.

The two private-sector appointments were previously assigned generally to the federal government but were transferred specifically to the Prime Minister by the Associated Press of Pakistan Corporation (Amendment) Act 2026, which received presidential assent in March 2026.

The board does not possess generally protected fixed tenure. Members other than those serving ex officio hold office during the pleasure of the President, while ex-officio members remain only as long as they hold the positions through which they sit on the board. The Information Ministry Secretary chairs the body, and senior executives of the three principal federal state-media organisations sit together on it. The two nominally private-sector members are also executive nominees.

APP records show that the board remained active: its 34th meeting was held at the agency’s Islamabad headquarters on 2 June 2026. No complete current public roster identifying the two serving private-sector nominees and every ex-officio incumbent was located, but the statutory composition and operation of the board are established.

The 2026 amendment also changed the formal appointment authority for the Managing Director. The position is now filled by the Prime Minister, on terms and conditions determined by the Prime Minister. No independent nominating process, parliamentary confirmation or protected tenure is provided by the Ordinance.

Muhammad Asim Khichi, a BS-20 officer of the federal Information Group, assumed charge as Managing Director on 9 March 2023 and remained in office in July 2026. Before joining APP, he served as Director General of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation and held positions in the Press Information Department, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Audit Bureau of Circulation and other federal bodies. His appointment predates the 2026 amendment, but his continuing tenure exemplifies the agency’s reliance on the federal information bureaucracy for executive leadership.

Recruitment and financial management came under parliamentary scrutiny during the review period. Responding to a National Assembly question on 11 February 2026, the government said that no permanent appointments had been made and that temporary recruitment had been conducted within approved posts under powers delegated by the board. According to the ministry’s written reply, an Auditor General report had identified financial irregularities, illegal transfers of funds and 20 fake appointments. A fact-finding process resulted in referral of the matter to the Federal Investigation Agency, registration of an FIR and continuing investigation and recovery proceedings.

Source of funding and budget

APP is predominantly financed from the federal budget. Its Ordinance requires it to submit annual estimates of receipts and expenditure for federal government approval, including the amounts required from the government. The statutory APP fund may receive federal grants, approved loans, subscriber fees, proceeds from content sales and other contributions. Its accounts must be audited, and the Auditor General retains the power to audit them.

Federal budget documents provide direct evidence of the scale of government support. The FY2025–26 budget allocated PKR 2.155408 billion to APP, subsequently revised to PKR 2.156585 billion. The FY2026–27 allocation is PKR 2.195 billion, comprising PKR 2.05 billion in employee-related expenses and PKR 145 million in operating expenses. The allocation appears as a separate APP entry under miscellaneous expenditure of the Information and Broadcasting Division.

These figures supersede earlier reliance on expert estimates placing the government contribution at around 70% of APP’s operating budget. Although APP earns subscriber, content and digital revenue, no evidence indicates that these sources approach the scale of the federal allocation. In August 2025, management reported that the agency’s website generated PKR 2.4 million annually and projected that planned revenue initiatives might eventually produce as much as PKR 200 million a year, still less than one-tenth of the current federal allocation.

APP’s government allocation is smaller than that of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, but not by the margin previously reported. The FY2026–27 federal budget allocates approximately PKR 6.397 billion to PBC and PKR 2.195 billion to APP. APP’s allocation is therefore roughly one-third of PBC’s rather than more than ten times smaller.

The available evidence comfortably supports the State Media Matrix funding indicator. Direct federal support finances APP’s employee-related and operating expenditure and substantially exceeds its documented or projected self-generated income.

Editorial independence

The 2002 Ordinance contains aspirational language about professionalism, independence, autonomy and credibility, and APP states that it aims to provide accurate, objective and reliable reporting. Those aspirations are not supported by an enforceable editorial firewall. The operative provisions of the same Ordinance place news policy under direct executive authority.

Section 5(h), as amended in 2026, requires APP to carry out instructions from the ministry responsible for the agency concerning the general pattern of policies governing the announcements, news and views it disseminates. Section 6(2) further binds the Corporation to federal government directives and orders on questions of policy and makes the government the sole judge of whether an issue constitutes a policy matter. These are explicit statutory powers to influence editorial output, not merely informal opportunities for political pressure.

Governance reinforces those powers. The ministry Secretary chairs the board, the Prime Minister appoints the Managing Director and nominates the two private-sector board members, and the remaining membership includes senior government information officials and executives of Pakistan’s other federal state broadcasters. Members outside the ex-officio bloc lack secure tenure independent of the executive.

No independent APP-specific ombudsman, external editorial complaints mechanism or body empowered to audit political balance and editorial autonomy was identified. The statutory financial-audit requirements do not provide independent review of journalism or compliance with public-service-media standards. SMM assessments obtained from Pakistani journalists and media observers in March 2023, June 2024 and July 2025 similarly described APP as a principal conduit for official statements and government narratives, with little institutional capacity to scrutinise the authorities independently.

AI and digital policy

APP distributes content through its websites, subscriber feeds, video and photographic services and social-media accounts. No publicly accessible APP editorial policy was identified governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, automated news production or disclosure of AI-assisted content.

Pakistan approved its National Artificial Intelligence Policy on 31 July 2025. The Islamabad AI Declaration, issued on 9 February 2026, subsequently set principles including human accountability and the use of explainable, auditable and risk-proportionate AI systems in government. Neither instrument constitutes an APP-specific editorial framework or establishes disclosure standards for AI-generated news material.

Classification rationale

APP remains classified State-Controlled (SC), meeting all three conditions of the State Media Matrix.

It is predominantly state-funded. The federal budget allocated PKR 2.156585 billion to the agency in revised FY2025–26 expenditure and PKR 2.195 billion for FY2026–27. This direct support covers employee-related and operating expenses and is many times larger than APP’s documented or projected self-generated income. It places APP well above the Matrix threshold for predominant state funding.

It is state-owned and state-governed. APP is a federal statutory corporation under the administrative control of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The ministry Secretary chairs its board, the Prime Minister appoints the Managing Director and nominates its two private-sector board members, and most of the remaining seats are held ex officio by government officials or executives of state-media institutions.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control. The governing Ordinance expressly requires APP to follow ministry instructions concerning announcements, news and views and federal government directives on policy. The government determines for itself which matters are questions of policy. No independently appointed body, enforceable editorial charter or external oversight mechanism counterbalances those powers.

The board’s inclusion of the President of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors, two university department heads and two private-sector media figures provides a degree of professional representation. It does not alter the classification because the Information Ministry Secretary chairs the board, the private-sector members are nominated by the Prime Minister, non-ex-officio members lack protected tenure, executive leadership is appointed by the Prime Minister and direct statutory editorial-direction powers remain in force.

July 2026