The old way of getting into the media profession used to be a sort of mentor-intern arrangement.
BERLIN: This is in reference to the article “The media at risk” by Ayesha Siddiqa (September 19). The old way of getting into the media profession used to be a sort of mentor-intern arrangement where young people, seldom formally trained or educated in mass communication, would be working under the watchful eyes of a senior who would teach them the tricks of the trade, the ethics, the limitations. Above all, they were taught the correct and apt usage of language. Names such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Zafar Ali Khan, Nisar Usmani, Ahmad Ali Khan, M Ziauddin and Zameer Niazi would be in the newsroom to guide and admonish. Now seemingly, all one needs is a fast tongue, some command over Minglish (English mingled with another language) and there you go! This has produced a generation of quasi-professionals with no well-researched insight or any philosophical bent, making them an easy bunch to manipulate through carrots, sticks or mere rhetoric.
Usman Qazi
Published in The Express Tribune, September 21st, 2010.
