Moborate

Since we Pakistanis often suffer simultaneously from the twin demons of megalomania and paranoia - verily we are better than everyone else and that is why everyone is out to get us - we often also look at history through a rather selective and distorted lens. Unfortunately, none typify this mindset more than the doyens and doyennes of the Pakistani electronic media, in whom a curious mix of hyper-patriotism, half-baked information, sincere ignorance and arrogant bluster seems generally to hold sway. Take the issue of the day on Pakistani media: whether the American known by his apparent pseudonym " Raymond Davis" - who shot dead two men in Lahore - can be tried by Pakistani courts or whether the US government has any right to claim diplomatic immunity for him. I am not going to offer my own opinion on this because, for better or worse, this is an issue for the US and Pakistani states to sort out. (I should, however, point out that, personally speaking, I do not think armed A...

Can we just express how refreshing it was to watch  Najam Sethi 's first appearance on  Geo  tonight? In the middle of the hyperventilating cacophony surrounding the  shooting to death of two men in Lahore by a contractor of the US embassy  (and the death of a third in a hit and run accident apparently at the hands of an American consulate vehicle), Sethi began his new programme  Aapas Ki Baat  with the warning that he wanted to put emotionalism aside and analyse the incident only in terms of the facts. That in itself is an all too rare approach on our television screens these days. But what followed was close to a masterclass for other television anchors on how to impart clear, precise information with a logical, rather than emotional, analysis. Not only did Sethi cite the actual clauses of the  Vienna Convention  on diplomatic immunity (which Pakistan has ratified) that have been furiously talked about but never actually specifically refere...

This past week seems to have been a Nizami-obsessed week. Might as well share a final bit of news about the goings on at The Nation. So, Salim Bokhari has been tipped to take over as editor at The Nation in place of the recently departed Shireen Mazari. Bokhari has been a journalist for almost four decades though most people will recognize him most from appearances as an analyst on various television channels and his recent co-hosting with Orya Maqbool Jan of Aaj TV 's reconfigured Bolta Pakistan programme (the team was cobbled together after the departure of Nusrat Javed and Mushtaq Minhas for Dunya TV). Previously, Mr Bokhari's most high profile stint was as the Resident Editor of The News in Lahore. He had left The News to start up the Abu Dhabi-owned The National 's Pakistan operations but the Pakistani version was quietly shelved. Salim Bokhari (right) with Orya Maqbool Jan Now you might be wondering what would draw The Nation owner Majid Nizami to Mr Bokhari ...

As if almost on cue to khabardrama's long-delayed review of Arif Nizami's Pakistan Today (see previous post ), comes news from chacha Majid Nizami 's The Nation of large-scale layoffs at the paper there (no, we don't think there's any connection). More than 30 staffers have been summarily dismissed today without any advance warning from the Lahore office alone and several from Islamabad as well. The Peshawar and Karachi bureaus fear that the axe will next fall on them. Economic difficulties are being cited as the only reason. It's not entirely clear yet whether the personnel sacked were the same ones who had recently received long-delayed raises or whether these layoffs had anything to do with the very recent departure of editor Shireen Mazari . It should be kept in mind that Majid Nizami can be a vengeful proprietor. We heard about a peon who was recently summarily sacked after more than 20 years of service, simply because the management suspected that his l...

First of all an apology and an excuse. I have been meaning to write about Arif Nizami 's long-awaited Pakistan Today ever since it hit the newstands but have found myself contracting a severe case of writer's block every time I sat down to do just that. Front page, Berliner-style The reason is simple. Maybe it's just me, but I need to either love something passionately to feel motivated enough to gush about it in print or to feel it's so bad that I can't wait to tear it to pieces. In the present case, I felt no such overpowering emotion. No adulation or loathing or anything so strong. Just a vague grey reaction. Competent, I thought. Pretty decent. Promising. Not too bad really. A solid, worthy venture. But nothing exciting. Or too awful. The paper certainly looks different though. Mainly because it doesn't look like your average broadsheet Pakistani daily due to its ' Berliner ' (not tabloid, they insist) format. Now I do realise that most upmarket...

So, the honeymoon of the conspiracy maniacs has finally come to an end. It has been confirmed that Shireen Mazari , that doyenne of hyper-nationalistic pseudo-patriotic nonsense nutters (a.k.a. 'everyone's out to get us because we are so brilliant' conspiracy theorists), who took charge of The Nation after the bitter falling out between patriarch Majid Nizami and nephew Arif Nizami , has been forced to resign her editorship. Staffers were formally informed of the change today.   Shireen Mazari: a particular kind of alaap She lasted in her position about 14 months to the day. Though in one sense it seemed like a marriage made in heaven, it lasted slightly longer than I expected, given the humongous egos of both Ms Mazari and Mr Majid Nizami. There has been a lot of speculation the whole day among journalistic circles about what exactly led to the falling out between obsessive India-bashing Majid Nizami (the main thrust of his 'doctrine' at the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Tru...