And so began the journey…

I still remember the day I was called into Mr Sultan Lakhani’s office and informed of the decision. Bilal was also present when I was told, “We’ve decided to start an English language newspaper.” A momentary silence followed as they awaited my reaction. “Excellent, I look forward to writing for it,” I replied.

And so began the journey. In days to come I had plenty of opportunity to talk, argue and crack jokes with Bilal about his pet project, sharing pointers about people and ways to treat news.

He told me then that he wanted to target younger adults with the paper, and offer the IHT as a bonus. At the time I was sceptical and told him so, I didn’t think the younger segment he was talking about was very interested in newspapers and besides, they could get their news online just as easily.

In its first year the paper has vindicated the vision. The Express Tribune has picked up a readership in a segment whose life and career lie ahead of them, not behind them. As they grow they will carry the paper with them, and the paper can credibly aim to become a part of their lives in years to come.

The op-ed pages of The Express Tribune are probably the liveliest in the industry.

Keeping the pieces short has something to do with this, but I think being bold enough to give fresh new faces a crack at writing has worked very well.

The website has forced every other news outlet to upgrade theirs. A riotous comments section goes a long way in making the pages so popular online, and I found it very interesting to read about all the editorial input that goes into managing a comments section.

The Express Tribune has faced the challenge of being an integrated newsgathering operation, with reporters from the Urdu paper and TV channels providing stories as much as its own dedicated reporters. Under the best of circumstances such arrangements can be tricky to implement, with mismatched deadlines between TV and print becoming a factor, turf issues in reporter assignments as well as the different requirements of Urdu and English readerships. So in that sense, the news team can claim to have broken new ground: their experience in integrated news gathering is unique in Pakistan.

Yet the quality of its news coverage is the one area where there is most room for improvement for The Express Tribune. Take the coverage of the floods as an example. On two occasions the paper carried stories saying the Shahbaz airbase had been flooded and evacuated when not only was this not true, but on the second occasion the story was printed days after the Pakistan Air Force had shown that the Shahbaz airbase was fully operational.

The inundation of Jaffarabad likewise received only fleeting mention, and even that came a few days after the event and the evacuation of Jacobabad too was largely missed.

These were some of the biggest stories of the floods and deserved proper editorial attention.

The same mistake - of loss of editorial perspective - has been on display on many other occasions too, such as the “fake WikiLeaks” story and the story on the front page which claimed that Raymond Davis is the man behind all the terrorism in Pakistan.

Swatting away these kinds of editorial lapses should be The Express Tribune’s biggest challenge in its second year.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th,  2011.