My journey in journalism began with hesitation, uncertainty, and unknown fear shaped by my father’s concern that it was a dangerous profession in Pakistan. Over the years, that journey took me through some of the most defining moments of Pakistani media, particularly my association with The News, which became central to both my professional growth and personal convictions.
My father was a professor of journalism, but he never wanted me to become a journalist. I used to write in many Urdu and English newspapers during my school days, yet my father always discouraged me because he thought journalism was a very dangerous profession in Pakistan. By the time I reached Government College University, I had nearly given up my dream of becoming a journalist.
During that time, I was a regular reader of Weekly Viewpoint, founded by Mazhar Ali Khan, and Zafar Iqbal Mirza (ZIM), I.A. Rehman, Shafqat Tanveer Mirza, Alys Faiz and Hussain Naqi were my favourite writers published in this magazine. They were symbols of resistance against the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. I started reporting on student activities for Viewpoint under the guidance of Zafaryab Ahmad, although my father still wanted me to focus on my studies.
However, a turning point came in my life when my father died at the age of 48. I was the eldest among my siblings, and after his death I easily convinced my mother to allow me to become a journalist. I got the job of an intern sub-editor at the age of 21. While working as an intern, I never discontinued my education. In the next two years, I completed my master’s in journalism from the University of Punjab, Lahore, attending classes in the daytime while working at Daily Jang, Lahore, in the night shift. After my master’s, I was transferred to the reporting section, and reporting gave me recognition as a journalist in a very short span of time.
During that period, Hussain Naqi launched a Punjabi daily “Sajjan” in 1989, which became a great success, but when the government changed in 1990, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stopped advertisements for “Sajjan”, and this Punjabi daily came to an abrupt end. It was then, in 1991, that The News International was launched from Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore, and I was asked by the chief editor of The News to file exclusive stories for the paper.
Hussain Naqi was looking after the Lahore edition, and I joined his team when he was publishing the dummy of The News. I thus got an opportunity to work under the editorship of a journalist I had admired since my student days, following him from Viewpoint to Sajjan. Now I was working under his guidance at The News. The office of The News was established on the fourth floor of the Jang Building in Lahore, and I used to spend most of my time there in the cabin of Saeed Qazi, who was the shift-in-charge and my colleague at Jang. He was later transferred to The News due to his good English skills. Famous Urdu columnist Munoo Bhai was also a regular visitor to the fourth floor due to his friendship with Hussain Naqi and Saeed Qazi.
I still remember that one day I filed a story about the proposal to set up media courts by the then Nawaz Sharif government. When Naqi sahib read my story on his computer, he called me and asked, “Barkhurdar, I am sure you must have some evidence for this story.” I tried to show him a summary of the Federal Information Ministry, but Hussain Naqi said there was no need of any documents, as he knew I had the evidence and had quoted the summary. He told me that my story was a bombshell and that the ministry would come up with a contradiction the next day. His doubt was not baseless. The very next day, the then Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid denied my story, but Hussain Naqi refused to publish his contradiction, which turned into a big issue. Naqi sahib stood by me and that gave me new confidence. I earned both admirers and adversaries through the stories published in The News, and the Nawaz Sharif government compiled a list of journalists from Jang and The News and instructed the chief editor to dismiss them all; however, the chief editor refused and consequently faced the repercussions.
It was also during this time that The News introduced “gender balance” for the first time in Pakistani journalism, and I remember that Hussain Naqi tried to hire 50pc females in the staff, a policy fully supported by the management of The News. Maleeha Lodhi was appointed as the editor of The News, Rawalpindi, and she became a source of inspiration for many female colleagues. There was a trade secret behind this gender balance policy: females were more hardworking and punctual than males, and their professional attitude changed the atmosphere of our newsroom and reporting section, forcing all males to compete with females, at least in punctuality. This gender balance was later also introduced at Geo News when it was launched in 2002.
At that time, I was looking after the Islamabad Bureau of Geo News, and I remember I had more female reporters than male reporters. When these young female reporters started moving in the capital with their cameras and tripods, many male chauvinist journalist colleagues did not take them seriously. Some of them were even ridiculed by government officials, and some young women were not allowed into the government buildings. I confronted many government officials and consistently cited The News as an example, arguing that female staff had played a crucial role in the newspaper’s success and that these young women would likewise turn Geo News into a success story. Once again, the experiment proved successful, as it had originally at The News.
This experience of working across challenging environments continued when I covered the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006, spending many weeks in Beirut, where I got a chance to work alongside famous British journalist Robert Fisk. During that time, he suggested the idea of writing a “Lebanon Diary” from Beirut. Although it was challenging for me as I was covering the war for Geo News, I nevertheless began writing the “Lebanon Diary” for The News. Years later, I returned to Lebanon in 2024, and on one occasion a senior official from the information ministry took me to a half-destroyed building filled with old files, where he showed me cuttings of my “Lebanon Diary” published in The News in 2006. These had been sent to Beirut by the Lebanese Embassy in Islamabad. That moment was particularly meaningful for me, as it provided a tangible record of my association with The News.
Similarly, a few days ago, an Iranian journalist showed me an old copy of The News containing my interview with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, published in 2012. It came as a pleasant surprise and once again reminded me of my long-standing association with The News. These experiences have continually reaffirmed my enduring association with the newspaper. I take pride in having been part of the pioneering team that launched it three decades ago and in contributing to the challenge against male chauvinism in Pakistani media—an achievement that remains a lasting and gratifying part of my journey with The News.
–The writer is a journalist and serving as Executive Editor Geo News
