As a former staffer, I find myself on this anniversary returning to something my boss Umer saheb told me when I first joined in 2017: “Now you will understand how the government works.” Over the years, I found his words to be true. That is good news and bad as well.
One of the toughest periods we faced as a team came during the incarceration of editor-in-chief of the Jang-Geo Group, under then-prime minister Imran Khan. Revenue streams were blocked and salaries were delayed.
We protested on two fronts: against the government for curbing press freedom and pushing media workers into crisis, and before the management to pay us what we were owed. Because managing the finances was their job while we did ours without fail.
There was friction between the union and the management. But both sides behaved sensibly — shouting included — and an agreement was always reached, and workers were paid. Problems persist, of course.
Looking back at the government analogy, I see how deep-rooted the mechanics of mass media are in governance. Advertising is the funding mechanism, and it is used to reward entities that echo the narrative of those in power, and to penalise those that do not. And where the state stops, private capital steps in as investors from other businesses buying into media not for journalism, but to control what gets said about them.
The News has not been immune to these pressures. But it remains an organisation where workers' rights still exist, not fully, but to an extent that is hard to find in other media houses. The management listens. Whether they act on what they hear depends on them, but at least they listen. The union is strong. There is care for people. You can criticise the place and that is the beauty of it. The door to talks stays open.
I also remember Talat saheb, our senior editor. Calm, polite, compassionate. The kind of boss who let you take initiative, and who carried your voice up to the management when it mattered.
So I congratulate the whole team of The News, current and former, on the 35th anniversary of this journalism tree that continues to inspire storytellers and give them a platform to publish their work in a balanced way.
— The writer is a journalist based in Karachi.
