Journalism: an alternative history: Part – III
In my previous columns of this series last week, I thought I had discussed all the books by Zamir Niazi, but thanks to Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed, former director of…
Journalism: an alternative history: Part – II
Another good book on the alternative history of the media in the 1980s is ‘Mun Gharhat Aurat’ (Concocted woman) published in 1997. The Simorgh Collective of Lahore reviewed the presentation of women in the media during General Zia’s regime. Neelam Hussain, Nasreen Shah, Fareeda Sher, and others did the research that was translated into Urdu by Rubina Saigol. The Simorgh Collective had started this study in 1985 by observing the role of the media in projecting women during the years of General Zia’s Islamization programme which aimed at imposing obsolete ideas on society by legislative and media manipulation.…
Test case for journalists and the judiciary
In a dramatic move on August 16, the Larkana Bench of the Sindh High Court has overturned the death sentence awarded to Faisal Mehmood alias Mota, a Muttahida Qaumi Movement…
U-turn on media reforms
One hopes the recent unfortunate reversal by the Supreme Court of its previous position regarding the ban on hunting of the houbara bustard does not become a signal for other…
Press club polls
Charges of election rigging and fake voters’ lists have mostly pertained to our politicians. Regrettably, the long list of alleged ‘tricksters’ has now come to include some journalists in the…
Dedicated to the latest protest
The situation that journalists — or some among them — find themselves in reminds one of this timid soul who worked with a newspaper in Lahore. For ages, he was…
Media Matters
In their celebrated work Satellites over South Asia, David Page and William Crawley had not identified even the broadest contours of the enormity of challenges the private broadcast media will…
Missing trade unions
Noted sociologist, Göran Therborn, described the 20th century as the century of the working classes. It was in this century that the gains of the workers solidified under the Russian…
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