Moborate

When you have four stories on one patently manufactured 'issue' carried by a newspaper in five days, you can safely consider it an object lesson in how to conduct a witch-hunt. The News' City pages May 3, 2012 In the first story, titled ' City's elite schools say no to national anthem ' published in the city pages of The New s on May 3, 2012, reporter Sidrah Roghay wrote that several "elite" schools in Karachi had discontinued the tradition of singing the Pakistani national anthem during morning assembly " calling it a waste of time and energy. " She went on to imply that "regulatory authorities" were complicit in this "dismal" state of affairs, because of the schools' "influence and connections." The schools, we were told, catered mostly to the "elite, upper-middle class and middle class families." The battle lines between 'us' and 'them' being drawn, Ms Roghay and the city editor ...

Recently, the comedian and writer Sami Shah tweeted the following image, accompanying the visuals with the line 'My gift to anyone who tries telling you that fashion in Pakistan should be taken seriously' : I know this snub has probably enraged all the fashionistas out there, especially those who never tire of telling us how fashionpromotesourculture , how fashioninvolvesbloodsweatandtears , how fashioncanincreaseourexports and how fashionisfightingtheTaliban . But I would submit there's another reason why fashion is not taken seriously by anyone outside the fashionistas' charmed circle or at least certainly not as seriously as they hope it is taken: fashion journalism. I personally have nothing against fashion designers per se. Some of them can be quite creative at what they do, everyone's got to make a living somehow and most people wear clothes and like nice clothes, even when they can't afford them. It's the fact that commodotized fashion seems to h...

I was going to post my outrage over the depths of tabloid-y sleazebaggery that The News sunk to today but blogger Tazeen has already said all that needed to be said, so you should go over and read her post . I concur completely. Not only did the reporter, editors and owners of The News break all norms of professional journalistic ethics and the right to privacy, they have also abetted a truly despicable hospital administrator in flouting a sacred oath of patient confidentiality and exposed a woman to prosecution from odious Zia-era Hudood laws that they claim to have been in the vanguard of the fight against . They should be ashamed of themselves. We have in the past protested strongly when sleazy personal and defamatory stories against the Jang Group CEO Mir Shakilur Rahman were publicised on the floor of the Sindh Assembly  and in the media. For someone who has borne the brunt of such unethical invasion of personal privacy, it boggles the mind that he would allow his newspap...

I know, I know. We've been terribly bad. No need to rub it in. But the simple fact of the matter is, things have changed since we began this blog. On the positive side, far more people are keeping tabs on the media in particular and even the media itself has matured and become more self-critical, which takes some of the burden off us and this is something to be celebrated. On the negative side, we have let our own punishing work schedules make us a bit lazy and perhaps also complacent - it's not easy doing things as kaar-e-khair for so long. In any case, one of the most daunting things is getting back into writing after a fairly lengthy lay-off. Especially, as is always the case with Pakistan, there is so much piled up worthy of commentary. In fact, one of the things that made me hesitate about a number of different posts I wanted to write was because, after such an long absence, I felt the first post should be something truly substantial. I realize, of course, that this was ...

I thought about simply updating the previous post but decided that this deserved a separate entry. So, after much pressure from social media, activists, oped writers and blogs as well as the odd well-deserved editorial in mainstream papers , it seems the message did finally get through to Samaa TV 's management. Maya Khan and her team have been fired by Samaa and her programme stopped. The following is the letter from Samaa CEO Zafar Siddiqi which was shared with the media: Dear All Your feedback is appreciated. As a responsible corporate citizen, Samaa TV did what was required under the circumstances. We do not and have not in the past or intend to in the future to take our viewership or reporting requirements without the seriousness that they deserve.   You would appreciate that as an organisation with a functioning management team, we had to conduct certain legal requirements over the past week and internal review processes (which are operational in nature) before procedding ...

Every newspaper does year-enders, you know those things that sum up what happened in the past year that everyone already knows about and which only those who didn't bother following the news the whole year bother reading? We, on the other hand, couldn't give a rat's arse about year-enders. More importantly, we have a hard enough time keeping up with news as it happens and nobody ever pays us to dig stuff up from a whole year. In that spirit, we present 2011's final awards in the Bizarre Newspaper Headline Contest ... yeah, they're not a round-up of all the wonderful headlines that may have entertained us through the year, just the most recent ones we remember. In any case, here they are: 1. The What Else You Gonna Call It Headline Award Winner: The News Lahore on November 14 for its main lead about a poor donkey that was strapped with explosives that were set off via remote-control in a crowded market in Khyber Agency. Had this been the Express Tribune , we would ...

You know how, sometimes, you want to write a post on something big and important but then along comes something trivial but so funny that it's hard to pass up? Well, that's what I feel right now. See the following ad featured on the back page of The News today, featuring a line up of Geo TV 's drama serials for the week: Geo TV ad in The News today Read the descriptions of the storylines. In the interest of easy reading, I am reproducing them verbatim below (my favourite has to be #4): 1. Is woman made to sacrifice herself on man's desire? 2. Is a woman so useless that she can be kept and left on one's own wish? 3. Does a widow have the right to remarry? 4. Helpless woman with limited options. 5. Is it really hard to believe a woman? 6. Is a woman born only to be used? 7. Is woman so weak that any man can shake her existence? What a rollicking week of entertainment to look forward to. Or could one say that the success of the relentlessly misery-focused  Bol has g...

I never expected, when I wrote this small post challenging one by-the-way assertion of The Express Tribune 's publisher about ET 's online presence vis a vis that of its far more established rival newspaper, Dawn , that it would lead to an all-out flame war in the comments section. Those jumping to ET 's defence began first with trying to discredit our data, interpretation and our web-savvy, followed it up with spin about what was really meant by asserting that ET was "neck in neck" [sic] online with Dawn (hint: it can mean nothing other than readership especially when you're talking about circulations), and ended up by accusing us of carrying out some sort of campaign against ET . I was hugely tempted not to further indulge such grandiose notions of self-importance and (supposed) victimization, not to mention the fact that the comparative online reach of Pakistan's English print media is not an immensely critical issue in my opinion in the larger scheme...

There were some funny murmurings on Twitter about us not having commented on The Express Tribune 's one-year anniversary issue . I really don't see why we needed to. I mean, we don't usually comment on other paper's self-congratulatory anniversary supplements. And contrary to popular perception, we are neither obsessed with ET nor do we go looking for opportunities to stick it to them. And to be fair, ET has matured in many ways since it began. It remains the best looking newspaper in Pakistan and, while there is still plenty to poke fun at in terms of content (as there is in other papers), it is still the only paper to appoint an independent ombudsman for reader complaints , an innovation that other Pakistani papers would do well to emulate. With all the stuff going on around us politically and even in the media, we also really haven't found the time to do an exhaustive read of the anniversary supplement. I doubt anyone actually does that with any supplement, as...

First things first: apologies to all for the disappearing act. (For those who actually noticed, a silent note of appreciation.) Had been away for a rather long stretch of time and while I was able to follow developments back home in an irregular fashion, simply did not have the time or access to all the information to put a post up (the perils of work work). And much has happened in the media while I have been away, which I hope to get round to in a one-by-one fashion. In particular, there are some interesting developments brewing on the electronic media front. However, I first want to take up the issue which apparently threatens the very survival of humanity itself. Yes, I am referring to the shut down of Geo 's sports channel Geo Super and it's music and entertainment channel Aag . To hear Geo talk about it, it is nothing less than the rule of tyranny, the deprivation of Pakistanis of all that is good and worth living for, and the wiping out from people's lives of all i...