Even as Geo has hired some new faces, such as Dr Shahista Wahidi - at a salary well in excess of Rs. 20 million lakhs a month - and rehired others such as Sana Bucha at double their old emoluments (we have heard the new figure is 700K), it seems all is not hunky dory for everyone at the top-rated channel.
Not everyone at Geo is smiling like Dr Shahista Wahidi
There are well-founded murmurs within the organization that a large number of staff are about to face the sack. The scale of the coming lay-offs varies depending on sources but almost 50 staffers, including reporters, anchors, producers, assistant producers and support and technical staff, mainly from the Karachi and Islamabad bureaus, are set to lose their jobs in the next few days. Two anchors have already apparently been shown the door while the position of crime reporter Fahim Siddiqui (host of Geo's FIR programme and head of its crime desk) also hangs in the balance after he impetuously resigned over a power tussle with the Karachi bureau chief and Geo News head Azhar Abbas (Siddiqui is apparently back in touch with Geo supremo Mir Shakilur Rahman to save his job). In addition, some of those from the doomed Geo English project who had been adjusted within Geo but who never quite managed to fit in are also being let go.
Since management is remaining tight-lipped over the downsizing, it is not quite clear whether the drastic moves have to do with Geo feeling the pinch of the recessionary times or whether the sackings are based on job-related evaluations. Certainly the recent hirings seem to suggest, much to the resentment of staff, that revenues are not really an issue. Rightly or wrongly, those facing the axe are upset that they are being let go after standing by Geo during its difficult times. Given the Jang Group's culture of accumulating human resources and almost never firing anyone even if they have zero output - it is often said that people only leave the Jang Group if they themselves choose to - the change of management culture seems to have come as a shock to most. However, it is also true that, like many bureaucracies (PTV comes readily to mind), Geo is overstaffed in many positions. In particular, the Islamabad bureau - which produces only Hamid Mir's Capital Talk - has been regularly identified as being incredibly overstaffed in terms of technical staff.
Of course, staffers who are being let go or who fear being let go are claiming that they are being victimized because of personal grudges and that their evaluations have suffered because of their inability or unwillingness to "butter up" the management. Obviously, such claims are often normal in such situations and there is no way to verify such claims. We hold no position on individual claims (though some may have weight), but while we feel for people losing their earnings, it is also important to state that we see no reason why someone with poor job performance should be retained purely out of a sense of charity. That is how government departments like PTV operate, and look where it's got them.
In the current difficult economic times, many media houses have resorted to slashing costs through shedding staff, among them DawnNews, Aaj TV and Samaa. The most recent has been the Nawai Waqt-owned Waqt News which apparently cut almost 90 staff a few days ago. Geo and Jang Group as a whole are obviously not immune to the trend of the times.
Incidentally, there is evidence to suggest that the slashing of unproductive costs may well be a new direction at the Jang Group under the returning prodigal son, Mir Ibrahim Rahman (MIR). The first to feel the brunt of the new management culture was the music channel Aag, which had long been under the knife. It is said that MIR was ready to shut down the loss-making channel a few months ago and has only allowed it one final chance to pull itself out of the red. Most staff there have already been sacked and only a small staff remains to try to pull off some sort of miracle.
After the fate of Dr S&M, Aamir Liaquat and Nadia Khan - all of whom were let go when the ratings of their programmes began to dip - it is also rumoured that Geo is not too happy with the fall in ratings of Capital Talk. Hamid Mir survived the serious scandal surrounding him with regards to the death of Khalid Khwaja, mainly because one of the key players in that saga, Usman Punjabi (the man Mir allegedly had that phone conversation with), was later on killed in a drone attack. In all propriety, Geo management should have taken him off air pending investigations, but apparent criminal behaviour is obviously not as big a problem for them as ratings drops. Now, however, Mir must be a worried man for entirely different reasons.
I don't know if you people have been following the whole Royal Palm Golf and Country Club saga, wherein massive irregularities and corruption have been alleged by a National Assembly special parliamentary committee in the establishment of the elite Lahore club on state-owned land during General Musharraf's tenure.
A view of the Royal Palm pool and courseways: strategic assets?
Basically, according to the "comprehensive" report issued by the National Assembly's 20-member committee - which investigated the matter for more than two years - the fancy club was established in 2001 on state-owned Railways land through "deceit and fraud and in connivance with the then high-ups of Pakistan Railways." These "high-ups" included then minister Lt. General Qazi, then secretary and chairman Lt. General Saeeduz Zafar, then general manager Maj. General Hamid Hassan Butt and then secretary Khursheed Alam Khan. Not only was the contract for the lease of the land signed in a non-transparent and patently hasty manner against the norms of tendering and business practice (in one day, without checking the bonafides of the company involved), it was later revised to unduly benefit the club and its Malaysian owners (such as reducing land utilisation charges from Rs. 52.43 to a mere Rs. 4 per yard) and to illegally grant further land without any open bidding. Purely on the basis of illegality on the additional grant of land, the committee calculates that the state suffered a Rs. 4.82 billion loss. I would urge you to read at least the first report to understand the scale of the scam.
Incidentally, Klasra had broken the story back in 2001 when questions had been raised by the Auditor General about the transparency of the deal but had been roundly condemned by the then powerful General Qazi. And of course nothing much happened, since as we all know, it's not illegal and corrupt if military figures are involved rather than civilian politicians.
Now, have a gander at the following advertisement, pubished in Dawn yesterday (October 10, 2010) by the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club management:
The advertisement petulantly poses the following (grammatically incorrect) question: "What Price We Have To Pay To Build Our National Assets?"
I just have one question. How is a super-elite swanky golf club with only 2300 members (each of whom have shelled out millions to be a part of this privileged surrounding) in a country of 180 million plus (most of whom live either below or just above the poverty line, have no land to live on much less spend their non-existent leisure time on, and could not give a flying toss about golf), a "National Asset"?!?
I mean I know the definition of 'national interest' and 'national assets' has often been stretched beyond belief but this is just ridiculous!
I'm no supporter of Pervez Musharraf the politician but the reaction to his announcement to formally re-enter politics is really bordering on the absurd now. Are the Jang Group and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) really so scared of his potential impact on electoral politics that they are going out of their way to attack him? I mean, it's one thing to make fun of his idea of Facebook hordes sweeping him to victory, quite another to start frothing at the mouth and devote half a news bulletin every hour to undermine him. One would have thought that he would be considered as politically irrelevant as all ex-army chiefs before him, but the juvenile manner in which he is being targeted is probably giving him a far greater political stature than he deserves at the moment.
The prime example of this juvenility was Geo's edit of his speech in Birmingham, where two obviously unrelated strands of thought - "main...jhoot bolne se..." [...by lying..] and "...main... mujhe dar nahin lagta.." [I am not one to be afraid] - were taken out of context and presented as if Musharraf was admitting to not being afraid of lying.
Even in the edit, it's obvious that Musharraf had broken his train of thought and said something unrelated to the first part. Yet it was presented as a Freudian admission of a character flaw. It's the sort of thing video editors would have a chuckle over in their spare time, hardly the kind of thing worthy of mainstream television news. But even more incredibly, people like Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar, PML(N) Spokespersons Pervez Rashid and Ahson Iqbal kept referring to that silly edit as if it was a statement of fact in all seriousness.
When a media group refers to someone as 'Crazy', 'Hypocrite' and 'Coward' in the news headlines of its papers and further goes on to wildly exaggerate the dissent at his rally and label him 'anti-Islam' (all in the first three days of his launching his political party), you know there's some curious agenda at play. The point is not that people - and particularly certain political victims of General Musharraf's reign - cannot have strong opinions about him and express them. The point is whether a media house and journalists have any business passing such incendiary judgements outside the opinion and editorial pages.
But today even the limits of strong political opinion have been crossed. Today we have Talal Bugti, indolent son of slain Baloch sardar Nawab Akbar Bugti, openly proclaiming Musharraf as "wajib-ul-qatl" [condemned to be killed] and offering a bounty of one billion rupees and 1000 acres of land to anyone who would behead him! News of the press conference, conducted jointly with the PML(N)'s Sardar Yaqoob Nasir, and where this offer was made, was carried without any cautionary editorial remarks by Geo. (Would Geo be so indulgent if, for example, the Taliban had called for General Kayani to be murdered? How about if someone had placed a bounty on Mir Shakil's head?)
Talal Bugti with PML(N)'s Raja Zafarul Haq in 2008: aiding and abetting?
Talal Bugti claims that Musharraf is condemned to death because a) he had subverted the constitution by overthrowing the elected government in 1999 and b) had killed his father. Of course, not for him the niceties of an actual trial in a court of law to determine guilt. Probably believing that the rest of the world operates under the same set of rules with which Bugti sardars govern their lands, he has not only found Musharraf guilty but pronounced the sentence and called upon any random person to carry it out. This is pure criminality, contempt of the law of the land and open incitement to murder.
Talal Bugti deserves to be arrested and tried himself. And those who aided and abetted the announcement of the bounty and carried the news of the incitement to murder without calling it as such, also deserve to be taken to task. Somehow I don't think either Geo or the PML(N) is going to be calling for the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice of this.
Aaj TV is going through quite a shake-up after the news of Talat Hussain's notice to leave the struggling channel. This past Saturday, about half a dozen staffers - including senior staffers - were given their pink slips and sources indicate that a total of about two dozen people face the axe in the next few days. Actually, staffers are being asked to resign to immediately receive a two-month severance pay, failing which they would be terminated and face a delay in the clearance of their dues. Understandably, most have opted to resign.
The news of this downsizing seems to strengthen rumours that Hussain will, in fact, be leaving, since sources claim that many of those being laid off were considered close to Hussain. However, he may initially only be doing a show at DawnNews rather than coming in as head of the channel as originally speculated. Sources at DawnNews indicate that the management was not ready to meet Hussain's demands of his having fiscal control over the channel as well, something he enjoyed at Aaj. Meanwhile, in a related development, DawnNews has announced to its staff that present News head, Mubashir Zaidi, will now assume charge as Chief Editor for both News and Current Affairs.
In other news, Yousuf Baig Mirza, the erstwhile Managing Director of Geo and currently head of Dunya TV, has been re-appointed Managing Director of Pakistan Television (PTV), according to an APP report in Dawn. He replaces the former Ufone head Arshad Khan who himself was on his second stint as head of the state owned broadcaster. Recall that YBM, as he is known, was first appointed head of PTV by Nawaz Sharif during his second stint as prime minister. He was retained by General Musharraf after the 1999 coup. He has now been appointed by the PPP government. Is he the most dynamic media head ever or does he just have really good PR with everyone?
It's late. I am tired. So I'm not going to write a proper post. But I still want to put this clip out there, for people to see and hear and to comment on.
The topic of the Riz Khan programme on Al-Jazeera English is Pak-US relations - whether they have reached a breaking point. In particular, listen in to what C. Christine Fair (Georgetown professor and Pakistan analyst) has to say about drones and the Pakistani media beginning around 5:10. She points out that the claims of collateral damage from the drone strikes are usually unsubstantiated (absolutely true, but as much I suppose as American claims of having taken out specific terrorists) and that "the interesting side of Pakistan's new vibrant media is that a lot of it is for rent." (Can just imagine the spluttering by Hamid Mir on Capital Talk soon.)
But would actually encourage you to see the whole programme. Some good stuff from General Talat Masood too. And a pessimistic outlook from Fair towards the end. Thanks to @takhalus for the link.
Watch this clip involving Bolivian president Evo Morales playing an exhibition football match this past weekend:
According to the report in the Guardianon October 5 and carried in Dawn's international pages today:
A knee to the groin may be more Vinnie Jones than Machiavelli, but it was no less effective for Evo Morales in asserting his presidential authority. With one deft movement, Bolivia's combative leader felled an opponent in a football match against a team of political rivals. The receiving player crumpled in agony holding, as local media put it, his "testicular zone".
The incident, during a match on Sunday to inaugurate a renovated stadium in the capital La Paz, was captured on video and last night aired on local TV stations and was uploaded to YouTube.
The friendly match started when, wearing a No 10 green jersey, Morales, a football fanatic and Bolivia's first indigenous president, led his team of bodyguards and officials on to the artificial pitch. The yellow team was led by Luis Revilla, mayor of La Paz and a political ally turned foe of the president. After smiles and handshakes the game began. Within five minutes Daniel Gustavo Cartagena, in the No 2 jersey for the mayor's team, scythed into the president after he passed the ball, gashing his right leg.
Morales, 50, a former Aymara llama herder and coca farmer, is not known for indulging critics, let alone people who foul him. He walked up to Cartagena, indicated his wound, then kneed him in the groin. The player collapsed, prompting audible whistles from spectators. The match swiftly deteriorated into a bad-tempered, foul-filled contest which arguably mirrored the Andean country's combative politics. By the end, the match drawn at 4-4, two players from each side had been sent off, including Cartagena and one of the president's bodyguards.
One bodyguard tried to arrest Cartagena after the final whistle, the newspaper La Razón reported, but he was released after Revilla intervened. Morales denied ordering the arrest but was unrepentant about his response to Cartagena's foul. "I passed the ball and suddenly I received a hammering. It's not the first time it happened," the president told reporters hours later.
Revilla also played down the incident, saying: "This was a football game and on the field we are all players." It was not clear if Cartagena was a member of the mayor's political party, Movement Without Fear. A medical bulletin from the presidential palace said Morales received a laceration on the inside of the right leg and that a doctor recommended three to four days' rest.
As a young man, Morales's passion on the field for a union of coca-growers' team helped him become union president, launching his political career. Since his 2005 election as the head of the Movement Towards Socialism, which has empowered Bolivia's indigenous people and forged leftist policies, he has become a reserve player for Litoral, an amateur second-division squad. The leader also hosted a charity match with the former Argentinian player Diego Maradona in La Paz, at 3,597 metres (11,800ft) above sea level, to protest a Fifa ban on games above a certain altitude.
Is Morales not getting a red card what is known as 'presidential immunity'?
To be honest, I was always very ambivalent about the Lawyers' Movement, even in 2007. Unlike many of my friends and colleagues (many of them lawyers themselves) who were all gung-ho about what they saw as Pakistan turning a page in revolutionary terms and civil society asserting itself against dictatorship, I had plenty of misgivings about the movement.
This ambivalence was born not only out of my low personal opinion (based on past experience and history) about some of the leading lights and most vociferous supporters of that movement but also out of certain questions of logic about the aims of the movement - which were never satisfactorily answered - and a feeling that the activism generally ignored the larger socio-political regional environment in which it was taking place. This of course led to plenty of heated debates.
Unfortunately, to argue against a popular opinion is to often run the risk of your arguments being conflated with those of people you have nothing in common with but who may be arguing against it for very different reasons, usually to do with personal interest and preservation of the status quo. And this is how most of the heated debates wound up, with irrational conflating of the issues I raised with those that e.g. Naeem Bokhari or General Musharraf had with the movement. Later on, some supporters of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) - who had been at the forefront of the earlier movement - also raised similar issues but were seen to be trying to preserve a new status quo in which they were invested.
For the record, the aspects of the lawyers' movement that I questioned, aside from the character and politics of some of its leading lights, included:
- The tendency towards hooliganism and mob violence
- The tendency to blame all hooliganism and mob violence on 'external' agents and a refusal to punish those within its own ranks
- The unwillingness to countenance a dissenting point of view or any judgement that did not adhere to its opinions on a matter
- The claim that a previously severely compromised judiciary should be seen as having been washed clean by the events of March and November 2007 (the 'suspension' of the Chief Justice by General Musharraf and the 'Emergency')
- The claim that the judiciary's stand against General Musharraf was motivated only by matters of principle...after all, all of the present 'clean' judiciary had been complicit in whitewashing General Musharraf's coup in 1999
- The repercussions of a judiciary restored to power on the backs of lawyers who would then be appearing before it
- The inability to see the fallout of the precendences set during the movement
- The refusal to see the instability caused in the perspective of the geo-strategic Great Game being played out on Pakistan's borders
(None of these issues raised were meant, in any way, to condone either General Musharraf's inexcusable actions or the corruption of the Dogar-led court.)
Three years on, and in the midst of a new bout of a far more confused and divided lawyers' movement, all the same issues have come up once again, simply because they were never dealt with in the first place. In a twist to the usual refrain on the media that 'No Muslim can ever be involved in terrorism because it is against Islam', we now have lawyers claiming that 'No lawyer can be involved in anything illegal because they are meant to uphold the law.' What convenient logic.
Of course there are those who whisper about conspiracies to undermine the 'upright' judiciary and the character of some of the people in the limelight this time. There are those who have seized upon the fairly normal Punjab Police brutality as the only issue worthy of being focused upon. And there are those who lay the blame for the current conflagaration in Lahore at the door of political jostling for the upcoming Supreme Court Bar Association elections. As a sideshow we have the inimitable Mr Kurd - doing an encore of his clownish routines - vowing to drive the same judge away from the courts that he had a few months earlier said he would install carried on his shoulders.
But by far the biggest fraud is the pretence by those that oppose the lawyers' hooliganism this time that this is some sort of intellectual diversion from the purity of the original movement. It isn't really. It's simply a continuation of exactly what has gone before. And unless the outstanding issues are debated and addressed, we can expect far more of the same in the future.
Amazingly, Najam Sethi in his programme on Dunya TV yesterday pretty much said what I think about the issue (I say amazing, partly because he is not someone I see eye to eye with all the time and partly because I did not expect anyone on TV to articulate the issues in such a clear manner, even now). So instead of writing it out, I would encourage you to see the programme in its entirety.
There is such a frenetic game of musical chairs going on in the media these days that we can hardly keep up. So we decided to just do a short post, combining all the major transitions we do know about or have heard about...
First up, rumours are swirling that Fahd Hussain, who recently left Express TV to join Dunya, may be signing up with Aaj TV, where Talat Hussain recently announced his departure. According to this website, Fahd has been involved in some clashes with Dunya TV's owner Mian Aamir Mahmood and is also finding it frustrating not to yet have found a primetime slot there. We do not know how true these particular reports are but Fahd himself apparently refuses to either confirm or deny the rumours of negotiations with Aaj, which might be some sort of indication.
Matters are complicated by further rumours that Talat Hussain's apparent move to DawnNews may have hit snags over his desire to bring with him about half a dozen other subordinates at fairly high salaries, at which DawnNews management has balked. There are also reports that Aaj management is going full throttle to retain Talat by offering to address the issues he had with the channel. If indeed either or both of these reports are true, and Talat does in fact stay at Aaj, obviously there would not be any empty slot for Fahd to move into.
In any case, that's enough of the rumours. What is certain are the following:
Sana Bucha, the host of Crisis Cell who recently resigned from Geo to go to ARY, is coming back to Geo, believe it or not. Apparently, she began having doubts about her move to ARY almost immediately upon signing up with them, realizing (a bit late) that she would be reporting to one President Dr S&M there. Even before she had formally begun work there, however, she therefore allowed herself to be poached by the Express Media Group. This is when it got even more interesting. Having signed up with Express (in what capacity, whether for the Express Tribune or for their channels, we are not quite sure), she was beseeched by a rather dramatic Mir Ibrahim Rahman (MIR) to come back to the Geo fold. Apparently she was put under a lot of family pressure (the Rahmans know her family) and finally buckled on the condition that MIR would handle the embarrassment with the Express management. In this short, almost virtual job hopping spree, it is said that she managed to come back to Geo at double her previous salary. A good strategy if you can swing it.
Meanwhile, from the looks of this return, the negotiations that Geo was having with Meher Bokhari (which have been confirmed) to wean her away from Samaa, seem to have come to naught.
But Geo has managed to snag one other big fish, so to speak. As we reported earlier (in rumour terms), Dr Shahista Wahidi is all set to take over the morning show at Geo, replacing the once-favoured Nadia Khan. Wahidi has left ARY and scooted over to Geo's welcoming arms at a whopping salary. Her stint will begin anon.
In already established news, Zaffar Abbas has formally taken over (on October 4) as Editor Dawn from the departing Abbas Nasir, who has moved back to London with his family after four-years at the helm of the paper. And Aaj TV has introduced former bureaucrat and columnist Orya Maqbool Jan and former The News editor Salim Bokhari as the bickering replacements for Mushtaq Minhas and Nusrat Javed in their Bolta Pakistan programme. The latter duo, as we all know, now bicker over at Dunya TV on Dunya Mere Aagay.
On an unrelated note, Arif Nizami's Pakistan Today is now said to launch today (October 5) in Lahore and, interestingly, will be published in the tabloid format, making it the country's first such daily.
Some of you might already have seen this but, for me, the protest of the day award goes to…The NiqaBitches, two French students whose take on France’s decision to ban the burqa was unveiled in this story in The Telegraph.
What I liked about this provocative piece of visual drama is the fact that, unlike most protests, it made me think. My thoughts were, in chronological order, I’d really like to tan their hides (no seriously, these ladies need some sun) and those are SO the wrong shoes.
A picture has been doing the rounds on email purporting to show the debauchery of Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani. It shows a smiling Raisani with his head on the shoulders of a young, T-shirt clad girl. The picture has actually been culled from the Facebook page of Express News, where it was posted - for what exact news reason we do not know - on October 1. The poster of the photograph (we are not sure whether from within Express News or one of its 'community') claims it was taken at a party in Islamabad, the obvious implication being that Raisani was drunk and coming on to the girl.
As of now there are over 700 comments beneath the photograph which mostly range from downright abusive of Raisani (and generally all "ayyash" [debauched] politicians) to calls to "kill the lech." Most are unprintable. But even worse are the comments reserved for the girl, whose moral character was openly questioned, whose body language was sleazily analyzed and who, thanks to one commenting woman (!), was immediately and conclusively dubbed a "call girl."
We too were forwarded the photograph and link but decided there was no reason to carry such an obviously salacious piece of character assassination. No matter what one might think of Raisani and his political antics, this was clearly, we figured, none of our business... Until we received an anguished email from a friend of the girl, with proof, to set the record straight.
So guess what that poor, poor girl's name is: Aana Hassan Raisani. Yes, she is Aslam Raisani's own teenage daughter, who attends school in Islamabad. And the photograph of a father expressing innocent affection for his daughter was apparently taken at their home. Seeing how such an innocent (and private) moment was twisted and presented as one of alleged depravity by no-doubt the most depraved of people themselves, made me almost sick to my stomach. And I have a fairly strong stomach. Then the outrage took over.
In addition to Aana's friend who emailed us, a bunch of her other friends and classmates are now taking on the commenting sad fucks on the Facebook page itself. According to the friend who emailed us, Aana herself has been so severely traumatised by this event and the venom spewed about her and her father, that she has gone incommunicado. Nevertheless students from three schools in Islamabad plan to protest on Tuesday against this amazingly sleazy episode.
We have consciously decided not to republish the photograph. But if you have the stomach, read the comments under the photograph again to see how sick, perverted and corrupted the minds of the people in this country have become. To heap abuse on and defame someone without a shred of evidence or even a modicum of common decency, to be ready to draw the most perverted of inferences without a second thought, really, what can one say about such sad excuses for human beings? But what it also indicates is how quickly Pakistanis are willing to believe the worst about political figures, a function, I would submit, more of the environment we have all had a hand in creating than of anything the politicians themselves have done or do.
As for Express News, which ultimately bears responsibility for the content on its page, well may be it should just take its onanistic being and go screw itself.
: : : UPDATES : : :
UPDATE 1:
So, that possesser of high journalistic standards, the Islamabad daily Jinnah, had actually published the photograph on its front page as well yesterday, certainly without any fact checking but also without any sense of decency. After Aslam Raisani apparently threatened the paper with legal action, unless it published a retraction today, the paper has published the following front-page grovelling apology (translated here from the Urdu):
"It Was a Father-Daughter Photograph"
"Islamabad (Special Report): Yesterday we had published on this front page a photograph of Nawab Aslam Raisani with the following caption: "This is a photograph... which people have been sharing on the internet (Facebook) for the last two days. If this photograph is real, it is a remarkable picture...But if it is the product of the computer and Photoshop, then from a technical point of view, the person who made it should be praised [for their skills]... From a moral point of view, however, the person should be severely condemned. And if this picture is of this person's relative and someone has misused it by bringing it on the internet, that is also worthy of being condemned. But if this picture is correct, then, the judgement is for our readers to make.
The details that have emerged regarding this photograph, according to them, this is a picture of a father-daughter. It was indeed immoral to bring it on to the internet and Facebook. The people who did this should be arrested. Daily Jinnah requests the Cyber Wing of the FIA [Federal Investigation Agency] to conduct an impartial investigation into this [matter] and undertake a legal investigation about how this picture appeared on the internet.
Jinnah Administration"
Notice how Jinnah feels no contrition about its own standards of journalism - for publishing a photograph taken off the net without any fact checking and obviously only for salacious reasons - and passes the blame entirely on to 'the internet' and 'Facebook'. Note also the weasely way it claims it had distanced itself from the photograph in the first place. In fact, I had seen the October 3 epaper earlier and I am not even certain the reference to the possibility of the 'misuse of a picture of a relative' was in the original caption (I don't recall it). It certainly exists now in the October 3 epaper version but the only way to confirm that the paper has not tampered with the original caption would be to check it against the actual print copy of the paper. Regardless of whether the original caption is true or not, daily Jinnah deserves as much condemnation as Express News. Perhaps the newpaper bodies All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) should also issue a condemnation of their member publication.
UPDATE 2: Express Tribune's web editor has written to us and claims the Facebook page is not an official page run by the Express Media Group, is bogus and has been reported to Facebook for copyright infringement. The text of his clarification follows:
"To clarify this issue, The Express News Facebook page which put up the photo of Chief Minister Raisani is not run by the Express Media group (or unofficially by any of its employees to the extent that we have investigated) and has already been reported to Facebook for copyright infringement. The matter is pending Facebook's response.
The act of sharing this photo is condemnable and would never be allowed.
The only official Facebook pages for The Express Media Group are the Express Interactive and Tribune Facebook pages.
Best regards and will keep you up to date on when Facebook shuts down this bogus page. "
We appreciate the clarification and apologize for our strong words based on the assumption that this was an officially sanctioned Facebook page. However, we do wish this matter of copyright infringement had been taken seriously and dealt with before the current scandal broke. The Facebook page has been in existence for quite some time now (it has over 40,000 'fans'), displays the Express News logo prominently and also carries regular updates from Express News. We hope, in the interest of transparency, the Express Media Group shares publicly whatever legal action it does take against against those who infringed its copyright and scandalized the organization.
UPDATE 3:
So Express Media Group has finally managed to have Facebook shut down that page masquerading as Express News today (6 October). Confirmation of the shut down was received by EMG and forwarded to us. In addition they have informed us that EMG has also filed for an investigation into the matter with the FIA's Cyber Crime Wing. The Express Tribune and the Daily Express also carried clarifications on their back pages today dissociating themselves from the fake Facebook page. With regard to the lapse in taking the offending page to task before it caused damage to EMG's credibility, Jahanzaib Haque, the web editor, wrote to us to say that:
"The copyright infringement did not come to our attention till this issue surfaced, which is really unfortunate (we also noticed that the page had existed for a really long time), but better late than never."
We thank EMG for taking swift action in the matter and also for transparently sharing their details in the matter. It is much appreciated.
A spectre is haunting Pakistan - the spectre of yet another political party. It promises to bring about (yet more) "fundamental change in the way politics in conducted in Pakistan" and promises that "in the absence of such change Pakistan will not survive." It loftily envisions a "stable, democratic and prosperous Pakistan" and nobly wants to "empower all of Pakistan's citizens regardless of gender, faith, class or creed, to achieve their aspirations for the future." Its leadership says they are "not politicians" and in normal times "have no inclination to be involved in politics." But then "these are not normal times" because "Pakistan today confronts existential challenges." It believes our current crop of politicians, whether in government or in the opposition, "do not have the ability to guide Pakistan out of its troubles." It wants to bring "people of competence, integrity and honour" into the country's politics and would like to draw particularly on the ignored genius of the skilled Pakistani diaspora (because, hey, who can be more patriotic than people who immigrated to another country, right?).
But it faces some steep immediate challenges: for one, its main leadership is sitting abroad and it's not completely clear when it might actually get its feet on the soil of the motherland to do the real spadework of organizing a cadre. Secondly, so far, it seems to be under a bit of delusion that internet presence can translate into anything that matters politically on the ground. Can it translate its virtual presence into an actual vote bank?
No, no, no, I don't mean that new party.
No, not this new party
I'm referring of course to the party that only those who eyes wander over to those "targeted" Google ads on Gmail, Youtube, fiverupees and various other Pakistani sites know about (talk about a niche vote bank!). Yes, I'm referring to the futuristic party that has been threatening a revolution in the wonderland of Cyberia for many months now.
Initially, I was just tickled by the name: Mustaqbal Pakistan. Yes, it's not mustaqbil (the usual Urdu pronunciation of the word meaning 'future'), it's MustaqBAL. Now, as someone with an ear for accents, I just immediately assumed this had to do with the ethnic / linguistic background of the people behind this venture - or at least the (probable) head honcho who came up with the name (think Central Punjab.) But since my curiousity got the better of me, I checked out their official website in which they go to some great lengths to explain their name (apparently, it's a Frequently Asked Question) by differentiating between the noun ("with the meaning of the passive participle") and the ("active participle") verb versions of the word, in Arabic. Sigh. It's that whole Ramzan vs Ramadan thing all over again.
This internet party
But the party should actually have been called the Wonder Party, because it leaves you wondering what kind of evening resulted in its formation. Pointing out that "politics today is almost a dirty word" and "has come to be associated with incompetence, corruption, lies, extortion, intimidation, violence and, yes, even stupidity," it amazingly admits that "some of our colleagues - people of merit and excellence - are apprehensive about having their names linked publicly with Mustaqbal" (smart folks?). Therefore, it lists no names except for the Chairman's, who as I initially speculated, is actually from a Chiniot / Lahore family (that eventually settled in Karachi).
In fact, such was the revolutionary zeal of the party ("our names and faces are not important") that, for the first couple of months, it did not even list the Chairman's name. (Maybe, he too was apprehensive about having his name linked with the party? Some reconsideration eventually led to some video clips of him answering questions, in all probability self-posed.) How's that for a political party whose members have the courage of their convictions, eh?
But among the more interesting aspects of the party of the future is that the Chairman, an MIT-trained civil engineer named Nadeem Mumtaz Qureshi, actually never lived in Pakistan between 1974 and 2006, which might explain the fact that the party's section on media has this gem:
"..if one were to judge by the content of media programming it would appear that all of Pakistan is an ultra liberal society. An outsider would think that Pakistanis have nothing better to do than sing and dance all day. He would get the impression that women are liberated and modern."
Really??? I don't know which media Mr Qureshi has been watching but, then, we did say this party should be called the Wonder Party. In any case, in addition to drawing particular attention to the burning issue of empty cigarette packets being "thrown casually on the roads", public spitting and "bad manners" while driving, the party also has in its short 'Code of Conduct' for its workers the following two bits of admonitions:
- Childish conduct such as special number plates, blackened car windows, etc will not be tolerated
- Use of rude, intemperate or obscene language with the poor or with subordinates not acceptable
Don't you just love revolutionary parties that cover all the big issues in the world? In any case, these aspects probably led to the other Frequently Asked Question: "What is the difference between Mustaqbal and Tehreek e Insaf."
Good question. Apparently, the "fundamental difference", according to Chairman Qureshi is one of the "strategy" Imran Khan's party uses to "play the same game" as traditional parties to "win seats and power." Phew, glad we got that sorted out.
: : : TAILPIECE : : :
About that other new party, here's what I've been thinking since someone pointed out that the fancy schmancy designed logo of General Musharraf's party sort of reminded them of the Deccan Chargers logo in the Indian Premier League...
Sab se pehlay Bull
Perhaps the All Pakistan Muslim League can be launched as the new premiere wrestling (noora kushti?) or boxing league where the different factions of the Muslim League duke it out and battle for supremacy. Think of it this way, it'll make great television entertainment (I know the jostling has already begun on Geo but we're talking a revenue stream here) and maybe they'll even fly in cheerleading squads that'll be a darn sight better than the Tehmina Daultanas, Marvi Memons and Atiqa Odhos of the current Muslim Leagues.
Trust me, you don't want to see Tehmina Daultana trying this
Readers' suggestions for the team names, as well as their logos and slogans for the Premiere All Pakistan Muslim League, are welcome. If the designers among you want to send us your actual artwork of the logos, you can do so at our email address. Will be happy to put up the best from among them. So get cracking people, and find the team to support.
The Commonwealth Games (CWG) about to begin in New Delhi in the next couple of days have received plenty of bad press, and most of it quite rightly so. From scandals about massive organizational corruption to poor construction and hygiene standards, the negative media reports have really tarnished the 'Shining India' image that the Indian government was hoping to send out to the world. And as several Indian commentators and social activists have pointed out, there is something intrinsically problematic about spending 2.5 - 6.5 Billion US dollars (estimates vary) on a media spectacle in a country beset by dire poverty and a host of other basic issues. As we know all too well in Pakistan, governments obsessed about projecting positive images of the country to the global media often do it at the cost of what should be real priorities.
But not all of the scandals around the Delhi Commonwealth Games are self-inflicted.
Remember that shocking story about an Australian Channel 7 reporter smuggling explosives into the CGW athlete's village to show the laxity of security standards at the venue? It reverberated across the world, and added to the chorus of voices demanding that the Games be cancelled. Well, as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's well-respected MediaWatch programme reveals, the story was not all it was cracked up to be. (Thanks to @alexlobov for guiding me to it.)
If you watch /read no other media takedown this week, do watch this to understand how media reports can be manipulated, to devastating effect. And also to understand why the Pakistani media is not the only one sometimes guilty of gross sensationalism. Incidentally the full transcript of the segment can be found here.
Don't you just wish there was an equivalent programme on our television screens? Until that time comes, however, you'll have to do with the net. In any case, I just loved MediaWatch's tagline, which I thought could have been written for us at Cafe Pyala too: "Everyone loves it, until they're on it."
For those of you who (rightfully) never tire of running Geo / ARY down for their positions at the head of a particularly irrational class of reactionary sensationalist media, watch out. There's a new contender in town vying for the crown. And its name is Samaa.
If that looks a bit unsettling, so is the channel now
Do you know what the top headline for the channel's news was for hours this evening - at least all the way from the 9 o' clock news until the last time I checked? Not the floods, not the latest drone attack, not the ongoing government-supreme court tussle, not the alleged terrorist plot in Europe supposedly traced to Pakistan, not the dire status of the economy, not the New York Times reports of military displeasure with the government, not the seeming ideological about-turn of the MQM and its implications for the coalition government. No, it was a story about a debate within the Sindh Assembly about alcohol.
Okay, so one can legitimately question whether the Sindh Assembly should be discussing the merits of the alcohol ban in Pakistan at this point in time when myriad far greater problems confront the country and the province. And apparently the assembly members did spend a bit of time discussing the merits of foreign versus local booze in a light-hearted manner. But the TOP story???
And what a story it was! Replete with snarky audio clips of film music about addictive "sharaab" [alcohol] and double entendre narration (example: "Iss se pehlay ke arakeen behek jaatay aur shaam dhalak jaati..." [Before the members could be led astray and the evening spilled over...]), the report steadfastly ignored the fact that the debate actually began over a parliamentarian pointing out the damage that illegal (and dangerous) moonshine often inflicts on citizens. Perfectly legitimately, the member questioned the hypocrisy of a system in which the elite can get foreign booze in restaurants, clubs and 5-star hotels and are never prosecuted for their open consumption but the poor are hauled off to jails for possession of even small amounts of liquor and suffer far more than that in terms of health. This is an extremely valid argument and goes right to the heart of the class hypocrisy that makes up the rotten state of affairs in Pakistan. And before any of you get self-righteously religious on me, keep in mind that the debate was not specifically about Muslims and that there is a sizable population of non-Muslims in Sindh as well who are affected by the same double-standards. Not that I think the state should be interfering in individual Muslims' personal choices either.
But of course Samaa and its reporter were having none of that. All they were interested in was in sensationalizing the fact that a debate about alcohol was even happening in the Sindh Assembly at all. (And, aside from the issue of the timing of it, why should it not?) And by implication, scandalizing those who were taking part as imbibers and drunkards. It was all akin to fifth-graders snickering over the mention of the word 'sex'. (I can't find the report yet on Youtube but will upload it once / if it does come online.)
To further inflame the passions of its viewers, the channel took on the phone former minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi to express his "sorrow" over the debate and to berate it as not only "haraam" (forbidden) but "against the constitution." So, now even debating an issue of social relevance and health can be unconstitutional and un-Islamic. (Incidentally, what the hell happened to Sher Afgan? Recall that the man, before becoming General Musharraf's parliamentary spokesperson, was once considered a liberal PPP stalwart as well.)
Of course this is the same Samaa, whose anchor Meher Bokhari conducted an incendiary (and severely ill-informed) programme at the height of the Florida-based Quran-burning provocation, with nary a thought to the kind of uncontrollable passions it could give rise to. (To give you an idea of what that programme was like, it had on air, among others, whacko conspiracy theorist Shireen Mazari and the head of the Sipahe Sahaba Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi as 'expert' commentators and even broadcast pictures of some nutcase burning a Quran in New York.) Obviously the channel has decided to unceremoniously dump its much-touted erstwhile slogan decrying sensationalism ("Sansani Nahin, Siraf Khabar" [No Sensationalism, Only News]).
Now, we have always maintained that a person's lifestyle choices are their own and should not be a topic of public gossip. (Recall that we defended Bokhari and others when a right-wing website made salacious claims about their private conduct.) But I also think it is legitimate to discuss them when that person himself or herself make them an issue for others, particularly hypocritically. And it's about time that someone put an end to these kinds of blatant double standards. So, I suppose it would be perfectly reasonable to point out that Samaa TV's owner, Zafar Siddiqui, rather likes his Scotch (and this is no mere hearsay). The duplicity of a channel with a whiskey-swilling owner holding others to the fire for even discussing alcohol is just a bit too much to bear.
Imagine my surprise when Monday night I saw a news item on Geo which began with the anchors heaping scorn on the Indian media for following in the footsteps of the English media in trying to 'unfairly attack' Pakistani cricketers. According to Geo, Indian media had "fabricated" a new story about Pakistan cricket and was now claiming that Mohammad Amir, Pakistan's teenage fast-bowling sensation implicated in the recent spot-fixing scandal and subsequently suspended by the International Cricket Council (ICC) pending investigations, had accepted his involvement in the scandal and blamed former captain Salman Butt (also suspended) for leading him astray. The Geo report questioned the credibility of the "Indian media" report that Amir might, in fact, turn approver against Butt by showing footage of Amir moving around with Butt after his return to Pakistan and commented that the footage of their chumminess contradicted the claims by the Indian media.
Here's the story as it appeared in the evening's 9 o' clock news. Watch from 05:42.
So why was I surprised? Because I had read the news item the Geo report was snarkily referring to and condemning, and it was no Indian media where I had read it. In fact, it was an exclusive report on Sunday in Geo's sister Jang Group concern, The News. This is what The News' credible sports reporter Khalid Hussain had published a day earlier:
"Just a couple of days after ‘spot-fixing’ allegations were levelled at him and two other Pakistan players, a teary-eyed Mohammad Amir went to the team management and spilled the beans on Salman Butt — Pakistan’s Test captain. Sources told ‘The News’ on Saturday that the 18-year-old fast bowler told team manager Yawar Saeed and Shahid Afridi, Pakistan’s one-day captain, that he was innocent and just got involved in the scandal because of Salman Butt.
According to the sources, some of Pakistan’s senior players saw Amir meeting with Afridi. The allrounder later took the youngster to Yawar Saeed and three discussed the issue for some time at the team hotel. “Amir told the team management that he wasn’t aware of the gravity of the situation and also claimed that he just followed Butt’s instructions,” said a well-placed source.
…
Sources said that Amir told Afridi and Yawar that he didn’t even know Mazhar Majeed and was introduced to him by Salman Butt. “Amir told Afridi as well as the team manager that he was completely unaware of what was going on. He asked them to help him get out of the mess,” said the source."
Why on earth would Geo pretend it was an Indian media report? And why would they attack and undercut their own group's newspaper report? Was this some bizarre decision to spin a damaging report (and if so, on whose prompting)? Or did it mean that nobody at Geo bothers to read even their own group's newspapers?
The sarcastic report continued to be broadcast all evening and soon other channels - such as Express - also picked up the thread and joined in. The next morning, Geo Super in its own sports headlines too began to attack Indian media for its biases and even showed the offending report in the Times of India (TOI, incidentally, the Jang Group's partner in the floundering Amn Ki Asha project).
A screen-grab of the Times of India report
The TOI report is actually a Press Trust of India (PTI) wire agency report. And then the penny dropped for me (only partially though, as you will see later). Illiterate oafs that Geo sports editors are, I surmised, they had obviously either not read Khalid Hussain's exclusive or failed to connect the fact that the PTI report was probably simply picking up the report in The News.
But there was a problem: even though the PTI report was obviously written more than 12 hours a day after Hussain's report was published, there were some discrepancies between the two reports. For one, the PTI report never cited The News' report as its source and, in fact, claimed slightly different 'facts' regarding Amir's alleged confession. In particular, the PTI report claimed Amir had confessed to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ijaz Butt rather than one-day team captain Shahid Afridi and manager Yawar Saeed, as Hussain had written.
Here is the original PTI wire report with all its header info intact (which a source has kindly provided us):
SPORT-LD AAMIR(RPT)
Aamir's shocker: Butt lured me into spot-fixing, Saeed resigns
Karachi, Sep 27 (PTI) Barely five days after the end of their scandal-hit tour of England, fresh turmoil today gripped the Pakistan cricket team with suspended pacer Mohammad Aamir's shocking revelation that he was lured into spot-fixing by Test skipper Salman Butt.
On a day when team manager Yawar Saeed stepped down from his post, the Pakistan Cricket Board was left to do more firefighting in the spot-fixing scandal with the latest revelation.
The 18-year-old left-arm pacer was suspended by the ICC for his alleged involvement in spot-fixing during the fourth Test against England at Lord's last month, along with Butt and Mohammad Asif.
Sources in the PCB said Aamir had told chairman Ijaz Butt that he never wanted to be part of this "business" (spot fixing) but was forced into it by Butt and Asif.
"Aamir had gone to Butt and claimed he was innocent and a victim of the "seniors power lobby" in the team," a source told PTI.
But the PCB refuted the reports with legal adviser Tafazzul Rizvi saying that the implicated players continue to claim innocence.
"All three boys have been saying all along that they did not do anything wrong and they stand by it. They claim innocence and complete innocence and nothing but innocence. We are holding our investigations back at the moment and we are waiting for the Scotland Yard's investigation report," he said.
Another source revealed that Aamir, regarded as one of Pakistan cricket's most promising young talent, had told Saeed about the pressure being exerted on him by Butt.
"Aamir's claim is that he just did what he was told to do. He is claiming innocence now and says he didn't even know Mazhar Majeed was introduced to him by Butt and Asif," the source said.
Quite a few former Test captains, and even Pakistan's former President, Pervez Musharraf, have urged the ICC to show leniency towards Aamir, all of 18 and the quickest to take 50 wickets in Test cricket.
But chief selector Mohsin Khan said that he didn't agree with the viewpoint that Aamir should be shown leniency because of his age.
"I don't buy this argument because if you can do something wrong at 18, you can keep on doing it later as well. If these three players are found guilty they should be punished, including Aamir," Mohsin said.
The chief selector insisted that no cricketer was indispensable and there should be no compromise on discipline and commitment towards your team and country.
"Aamir must be punished if he is guilty. I just hope that that these three are eventually cleared because they have already damaged the reputation of Pakistan cricket and the country," Mohsin said. PTI CORR AH PM MRM PDS
09271847
First of all, note that the report was filed in the evening of September 27th (at 1847 hours, as evidenced from the filing time at the bottom), whereas Hussain's story was obviously written on September 26th 25th for it to be published on the morning of September 27th 26th. Mighty strange that a supposed exclusive appears on the wires more than a full day after an exclusive on the same exact subject appears in the national papers. Generally, wire agencies will not carry such a story as an exclusive if the news has already been broken earlier.
Secondly, note that whereas Khalid Hussain's piece cites specifics of Amir's confession, the PTI story does not and only cites "PCB sources", one of whom (the legal counsel) actually completely contradicts the assertions. As it is, the only possible sources of Hussain's story, as is obvious from the specifics of the report itself, could be only either Amir, Shahid Afridi or Yawar Saeed, which give it far more credibility. Our sources confirm that Hussain's source was, in fact, Afridi himself. The PTI story, on the other hand, seems to have been an unethical plagiarism of Hussain's story, further embellished and distorted to seem like an original piece of reporting.
But it gets far more interesting. Please note that the dateline on the PTI story is Karachi. That is to say, this report was not "concocted" in India, but rather written / "concocted" by PTI's correspondent in Karachi. So a Pakistani journalist actually wrote the PTI story but yet Geo attacked the Indian media for making up stories about Pakistan cricket. That's not the end of the bizarreness. According to our extremely well-informed sources, guess who moonlights as the PTI's sports correspondent in Karachi? The venerable sports reporter Waheed Khan, that's who.
Waheed Khan on a Geo Super programme
Waheed Khan was not only Karachi sports editor Khalid Hussain's predecessor at The News but is also currently a senior staffer at Geo Super and apparently responsible for the content of Geo Super's bulletins. (Incidentally, Khan also covers sports for Reuters but the story never ran on that wire agency.) He is one of the 'big guns' of sports journalism in Pakistan and has done some stellar reporting work in the past, especially during the match-fixing saga of the 1990s. It seems, however, that this time his professional jealousy at Hussain's exclusive seems to have got the better of him. According to sources, he and Hussain are not on the best of terms either, mainly because Khan has been attempting to get a foothold again at The News as well, which would impact Hussain's position.
So, in effect, a Jang Group staffer first (surreptitiously) put out an "exclusive" that, in all probability, was simply an embellishment on another Jang Group staffer's real exclusive (even if it was not, it wasn't an exclusive by any stretch of the imagination since it had been beaten to the finish line by more than 24 hours). And when that faux exclusive was picked up in the most roundabout way by his own Jang Group organization (which obviously does not bother to read Jang Group newspapers), he helped or at least supervised its on-air demolition on Jang Group channels as an example of a fabricated story by Indian sources.
If that doesn't make your head spin, I don't know what will.
We're hearing that Pakistan Today - former The Nation editor Arif Nizami's long-awaited new daily with the financial backing of Pakistan's richest (legitimate) businessman Mian Mohammad Mansha, among others - is set to make an appearance in the market this Saturday.
Sounds kind of odd, given that there has been no marketing push so far to introduce the paper, but that's what we're hearing and that's all we know so far.
Came across this British film newsreel from early 1960 about Pakistan and specifically General Ayub Khan's plans for the country he had assumed charge of only two years earlier (through what was then propagandized as the "October Revolution", believe it or not) and thought it really was worth sharing.
Despite the almost laughable pukka orientalism of the British reporter and the PR nature of the report, it is fascinating to see images of the country from 50 years ago. But what is even more worth hearing are Ayub's words and ideas (often paraphrased by the reporter). Concern over 'corruption and a cracking economy', belief in a democracy 'suited to the local psyche', 'saving the future of the country' from those politicians who had 'let it down', 'devolving power down to the grassroots', an unwillingness to see himself as a military dictator, and support for the 'emancipation of women' as an engine for 'modernization.'
Hmmmmm. Now where might you have heard that again? In. Exactly. Those. Words.
Tailpiece: The report ends with the following (probably unintentionally) prescient words: "Pakistanis know that their present revolutionary regime [sic] is the biggest gamble in their 12 years of independence. Will it pave the way to a stable and prosperous democracy? Or will it create evils as great as those it has driven out?" Keep in mind that within 10 years of this report, Pakistan was in a bloody civil war.
We have confirmed that Aaj TV's Executive Director News and Current Affairs, and host of his own show, Syed Talat Hussain, has put in his papers at the channel. He is set to bid goodbye to the struggling-for-ratings news channel at the end of October.
Even more interesting, however, are reports that he will be joining the even-more-struggling DawnNews which is trying its best to pull itself out of its forlorn legacy as an English-language channel. According to insider sources, staff at DawnNews have already been told to expect Hussain to take over as overall head of the newly-Urduized news channel in November.
Syed Talat Hussain: 'Aaj' here, come 'Dawn' somewhere else
Aaj TV, which had been begun by the Recorder Television Network (part of the Business Recorder Group) with quite a bit of fanfare in 2005 as primarily a business news-cum-entertainment channel along the lines of CNBC in the US, has struggled to define itself in a fast expanding and changing media market. Part of the reason for this was a belated realization that there was not much of a market for a business-focused channel in Pakistan (as CNBC Pakistan also found later) and partly it was because of the entertainment revenues-feeding-news gathering model being turned on its head in Pakistan. To their shock, most channels realized within a few years that the appetite for news and current affairs was far greater in the country than for entertainment programming.
After General Musharraf's amended media regulations in 2007, under which channels had to choose between news and entertainment, Aaj jettisoned most of its entertainment programming and focused rightly on news but could never match the resources of either Geo or (at that time) ARY. A steady trickle of trained staff to other channels did not help either, nor did the gradual wearing off of the novelty and falling viewership of its one genuine hit programme "Late Night With Begum Nawazish Ali."
Recently, it has seen its star plummet further as newer entrants such as Dunya TV and Express TV outstripped its market share for the No.2 and No.3 slots (the top slot of course going to Geo, which is far ahead of all others in terms of ratings). This despite bringing in Talat Hussain, who was, at least initially, considered a more sober and news-savvy alternative to the shriekfests on other channels. The news ratings continued to slide, despite a relaunch in 2009 as a 24-hour news channel. And the mostly mediocre-but well watched (in its 11pm time slot) "Bolta Pakistan" began to lose the plot, substituting irritating homeliness for real analysis or insight. (It didn't help that Dunya TV's jocular offering, "Hasb-e-Haal" destroyed everyone else in the 11pm slot.) The latter's Stan and Laurel Hardy duo - Mushtaq Minhas and Nusrat Javed - were in fact eventually weaned away by Dunya TV, not that many cared. That left only the "4 Man Show", considered by most as too juvenile for serious viewership, and Talat Hussain's flagship "Live With Talat"as the non-news programming highlights for Aaj.
Trying hip: Aaj TV's witty billboard ad in 2007 (Source: Karachi Metblogs)
But "Live With Talat", despite its occasional excellence (particularly its coverage of the army operation in Swat), suffered from being pit at 10pm against Geo's "Aaj Kamran Khan Kay Saath" which, for better or worse, even Geo's fiercest governmental critics watch, if only to make their blood boil. Lately, however, it seemed Hussain had also succumbed to the demands of sensationalism-as-ratings-boosters and begun to promote wild (and planted) stories as well as taking a decidedly more hawkish line.
According to Aaj TV insiders, Talat Hussain had also been engaged in a geographical power tussle at the channel. Based in Islamabad himself, he wanted to move even micro-control of the newsroom to Islamabad. This of course sat well neither with the Zuberis (owners of the channel), who are all based in Karachi, nor with the people who managed the newsroom in Karachi. To be fair to the latter, however, Hussain's model which apparently involved all input going to Islamabad and output coming from Karachi would have been pretty unworkable from a practical point of view.
In any case, Hussain's departure will probably make Aaj TV further irrelevant in the news media market, unless it is able to pull the some proverbial rabbit out of the hat.
On the other hand, DawnNews will gain at least some credibility in the short term with his coming on board and will also benefit from the viewership that he brings to whatever programme he hosts at the channel. In fact, DawnNews had also attempted to lure Hussain earlier and Dawn Group insiders say the management was quite miffed when he used their almost final negotiations then to negotiate a better package at Aaj. However, all of this bitter history seems to have been swept under the carpet because of DawnNews' own precarious situation. Dawn Group's management will be hoping that he can turn their fortunes around - his is the fifth or sixth top level editorial management change at the channel in its short history.
One issue will still linger, however, which is very similar to Hussain's problems at Aaj: will he attempt to micro-manage a newsroom based in Karachi while sitting in Islamabad? Apparently, Hussain is still reluctant to move cities and with him coming in above Director News Mubashir Zaidi (who was moved from Islamabad to Karachi for this express purpose), there is a chance for friction to develop.
International recognition: Talat Hussain on board Gaza-bound flotilla
It also remains to be seen how Hussain, well known for having a rather large ego (he was recently dubbed 'Flotzilla' for his well publicized exploits as one of the journalists on board the Turkish flotilla to Gaza that attempted to break the illegal Israeli blockade and came under Israeli attack), fits in with the Dawn Group's more low-profile culture. Remember, this is the same journalist who once, while still heading Aaj and hosting a current affairs show, saw nothing problematic about appearing in a Head & Shoulders shampoo ad. Anyone have a Youtube link to that?
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