A full circle

PESHAWAR: Taking editorial decisions is never an easy task; being in Pakistan, and in particular Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) makes it all the more difficult. Nonetheless, The Express Tribune is in its third year of publication of the Peshawar edition of the newspaper.

The industry had evolved in such a manner that local narratives would struggle to be heard through hefty headlines and what was considered important locally was mostly shown the dustbin. But The Express Tribune changed that, even its most vociferous critics would reluctantly agree. There is no exaggeration at play here.

A few years ago, no other newspaper would have taken the bold editorial decision to publish a story on its front page about a schoolboy from a village in Charsadda committing suicide because he did not own a uniform but The Express Tribune did. It appeared as a three-liner on the city pages of other English dailies, buried under the debris of some political tussle.

All of this has been possible because the paper stood as a strong cohesive unit with a thought process that was determined to break through the hackneyed representation of news. The Express Tribune has been the trend setter for what appears to be common practice now.

However, mistakes have been made; but what is important is that they have been acknowledged and all possible efforts are made to rectify them. The year in retrospect has possibly been the most difficult time for the newspaper. And although I have not always agreed with its editorial policy, I continue to be a part of for it for many reasons. The most important one being the consistent challenge to keep trying to reach something better; in other words not to abandon the ideal but implement it more consistently. The Express Tribune consistently offers a kind of space where nuances matter, where our voice—our flights of fancy, our fear and our ideas—is never considered irrelevant.
The dynamics of how the Peshawar edition functions, of which I was previously the section head, are such that it operates in the space between the city of Peshawar and the city of Karachi. While all the reporting staff is based in Peshawar, a major portion of the desk is based in Karachi. The one question I was usually asked was “how do you people manage?” but there was and is no other answer beyond the sheer dedication on both sides.

The paper has come a long way since then; I have now taken up a role which involves more writing and travelling. But my route always comes back full circle to the Peshawar desk; I might set off elsewhere, the day might still end at the beginning.

There are people who are not with the team anymore who craved out the structure that still exists. Zehra Abid was the desk head in Karachi and Muhammad Irfan the coordinator in Peshawar; both have moved on in their careers but their roles were pivotal.

Almost three years later, The Express Tribune Peshawar pages are still where nothing is considered impossible. To keep self-correcting and moving forward will be the challenge met head on.