Comments on: The Media Factor

By: Zia Hashmi

Zia Hashmi — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:29:25 +0000

Great, Raza. This is really a good meaning piece!. I enjoyed a lot reading it. I agree much of what appears in our media is hardly inspiring. Best way would be to introduce specialized coverage by trained, experienced and techniclly well informed column writers/reporters.

By: observer

observer — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:16:13 +0000

This post is a good read, Raza. Although, I am not sure I agree entirely with your sentiments. Unfortunately, I cannot comment much on the Urdu press and so you may well be right about that. WRT the English press however, my suggestion to you would be: switch to The News. It may have some of what you are saying, but a lot less than Dawn. Dawn oped’s are too painful to read–it’s partially the editors–I have had personal experience with them cutting out half of what I have written such that the article is unrecognizable! The editors there seem to think their job is to make each article look the same stylistically and have a near-obsession with summarizing–even if it means changing facts around! The News, on the other hand, does give space to a lot of different people–and though we do have our share of former ambassadors, they do not dominate. Dawn, I have to say again, is terribly stale–only octogenarian voices–Cowasjee is about the best they can do and even he is only good about a quarter of the time–no more.

You know what would make an interesting piece–is a review of some of the TV personalities. I am nearly dying to recount my take on Shahid Masood, for instance…

By: Ahmad R. Shahid

Ahmad R. Shahid — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:23:05 +0000

Well who is telling the truth and who is lying depends on which side of the fence are you on. A retired PAF officer was much against Nusrat Javed, when he would write for The News, since he thought he was a sold out. Simple reason: Nusrat Javed didn’t subscribe to the views of the military.