The Only News Not Fit To Print

If the protesting workers at a posh hotel occupy part of the establishment, you would think that this is a good enough City Pages news story. Or that for TV news bulletins, it’ll make a nice little piece towards the end of the bulletin - just before they have the mandatory news of the weird about skating squirrels or dancing pandas. So how come we haven’t heard anything, anything about the continuing protest by the Pearl Continental (PC) Karachi workers - some 150-odd - who have occupied the hotel basements in protest against summary dismissals?

The 'underground' workers' protest at the PC
(Photos: International Socialists Pakistan)

The protest has been going on for almost two weeks now. Express News reporters turned up and did a story but it was never aired. Similarly, a Geo reporter interviewed some of the protestors, but we never saw the story. DawnNews people also turned up, did some interviews and then probably couldn’t decide whether they should run it in their Urdu or English stream. No story. None of the Karachi newspapers with the exception of Urdu Daily Ummat has covered it.

As Teeth Maestro points out here, the owner of the PC chain, Sadruddin Hashwani is a "Brahmin", i.e very well connected (more details about the protest can be found on Teeth Maestro's blog as well as this one). Also Hashwani provides steady advertising revenue and all the media houses get sweet corporate deals to use the hotel facilities.

Even a sit-in outside failed to move the media

But my feeling is that Hashwani or any of his lackeys hasn’t even called anyone to get the story killed. Our media tycoons and their editors (or news directors as they are called in TV channels) seem to have an unwritten code that says that you shall not run a negative story about anyone who advertises. Come to think of it, when was the last time you saw a negative story about Atlas Honda, Dalda, Zong, Standard Chartered, or even Shaan Masala?

Are we to assume that there has never been anything worth reporting from the world of big business except PR type stuff like product launches and sales conferences? I don’t really follow the business press but if any of you guys have seen anything like this please do share with us.

And if, as working journalists, we are not allowed to cover objectively any business that advertises with us, then surely all the lively, kick-ass stories we see on our media are because of the fact that someone forgot to pay our seth.

Eyes Wide Open

So, once again we've all disappeared for a bit. Eid and all that...

Just wanted to share this story from Dawn's Business pages with everyone, which certainly made MY eyes pop. It's worth reading.

Here is what it basically reports:

"A foreign-sponsored local bank has called shareholders to an extraordinary general meeting on Oct 19 at which Item three on the agenda would be of interest.

It seeks to obtain shareholders’ approval of remuneration to be paid to non-executive directors of the bank’s board for attending board meetings and its committee meetings.

Some market watchers believe that the proposed scale of the sitting fees of directors is preposterous. Chairman and deputy chairman (DC) would receive a packet of US$25,000 per meeting, while other members on the board would be handed down $10,000 for every time the board meets.

Converted at Rs82.85 to a dollar, chairman and DC would receive Rs2 million and other members on the board Rs0.8 million per head.

The board meets on an average five times a year, so that the directors would be able to reward themselves with Rs10 million for the top two men and four million for each of the other six non-executive directors."

For readers' information, the bank Dawn was too coy to name, is UBL.

Now go back and read it again. Or actually go and read the whole story, which puts things into more perspective. As a further reference, let me point out that an entity such as Sui Southern Gas Company pays its non-executive directors an honorarium of around Rs. 10,000 - 15,000 for their time, per meeting. Which seems fair enough since the board members are not really employees of the company.

And you thought all that "excessive emoluments" category was limited to the AIGs and Lehman Brothers of this world. Of course, Junaid Jamshed will probably say these rates were fixed by the morning angel and this is the way Allah meant it to be.