When we launched The Express Tribune in 2010, it was a game changer. Bringing out another English newspaper in a country where the majority of readers choose Urdu newspapers or news channels was no easy task, but today we reap the dividends.
As the CEO of Express Publications, I can clearly see the paper erase the long-standing age divide which previously used to demark which papers were read by those aged between 15-30 and those in an older group. Even the young executives who prefer to stay abreast with news on their smartphones and tablets like the feel of our bold newsprint. Today, The Express Tribune pulls together those audiences and others under its iconic masthead.
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Our pre-launch market research suggested there was no appetite for a new English language daily newspaper in the country - existing readers had no complaints! We were told these readers liked a newspaper that was a literal translation of its sister Urdu publication, with dozens of stories on the front page, full of lurid gossip, innuendo and political intrigue; others were apparently satisfied with a monotone, dull print design and deadened prose.
Even so, we felt - we knew - that there was a market for something better. Pakistanis become immune to the substandard, but give them something better and they flock to it. And this is exactly what happened.
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The journey to making The Express Tribune one of Pakistan’s most read and talked about English language dailies started much before its launch on 12 April, 2010. For me, it began in September 2009 when I was brought on board to be Express Tribune’s launch editor. With M Ziauddin sahib as the Executive Editor, we started the journey of putting together a team and putting into place systems that would ensure that we produced good content on a consistent basis.
Looking back, I can say it has been a difficult but rewarding experience. We have been criticised, ridiculed, threatened and attacked. But at the same time, we have also been appreciated and cited for our work and for the stand we have taken on a number of issues. The praise has come from the most unexpected quarters and the recognition makes it all worth it.
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The day I cried in the newsroom
A news editor is not a humanoid, bereft of emotion. He is flesh and blood like you. He does know what is to be human, to speak human, though he may be cynical and jittery at times – but that is because he mostly has to pull an all-nighter. He is a human homie. He feels the same way you do. He feels the pain. He grieves. And there are days when he feels like crying, too.
I’m no exception.
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Making the best out of a bad rap
For nearly a decade and a half, Pakistan has been getting a bad rap in the international press. Between the years 2007 and 2013, in particular, the country was labelled the most dangerous place on the planet by media outlets as diverse as Newsweek, The Economist and Fox News and many others. The US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan apparently didn’t register half as much news buzz as Pakistan did. All for the wrong reasons, of course.
The idea that the country hosted the most active terrorists in the world was popularized long before the 2011 Abbottabad raid led to the uncovering of the hideout of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or the capture of the infamous Bali bomber Umar Patek. Never mind the terrorists who were roaming free in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen around the same time or in the years before that. The more scurrilous a story the better, the more gruesome the killing the bolder the display. That is pretty much how news coverage on Pakistan seems to be decided abroad. It is also disappointing to see how even non-western media outlets continue to hold on to the news myths surrounding the country. Some of those gladly help strengthen those myths, failing to see actual ground situation.
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Courage in journalism
It is the fifth anniversary of our newspaper. It has always been a great feeling to be working as a correspondent forThe Express Tribune, one of the country’s leading English dailies, in the troubled province of Balochistan. I am among the lucky ones who have been with the newspaper from the start. It is a reporter’s dream to work with a professional editor and section head who has adequate knowledge of the region where his reporters are working and provides guidance on the structure and importance of a news story.
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Five years and going strong
Launched five years back with a young team The Express Tribune stands exalted as a mainstream media outlet today upholding journalistic values of objective and unbiased reporting.
With ever burgeoning outreach, both for its print and online editions, the newspaper during the past five years catered to the demand of both educated clique and the masses in general, who wanted to understand the true picture of daily events happening inside Pakistan and in the region.
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Where digital and print meet
At The Express Tribune, we don’t see print and digital mediums as competing entities. We see them as part of providing a much more engaging and in-depth news experience.
Being a former print man, I can attest to how the separation between the two media greatly limited the free flow of information and ideas between the two entities.
Read more here.
Into a digital space
“A cluster bomb blowing apart who we are and how our world is ordered.” Digital media in Pakistan has yet to take this form but we are certainly heading there.
Read more here.
And in the next five years…
Five years in the life of an English-language newspaper in Pakistan can seem like an eternity. They have not always — indeed ever — been easy and the threat from militants has touched our doors and injured, even killed, our staff on several occasions. The Karachi office is now something of a fortress, and the screens erected on the flyover that passes close to the entrance may prove to be an effective deterrent for those that wish us to be silenced or intimidated. We have published notwithstanding the threats and the staff has continued to put together a newspaper every day sometimes under the most trying of circumstances.The Express Tribune was founded as a newspaper that speaks with a liberal voice, that upholds the democratic process and good governance and champions the rights of minorities and those who are dis-empowered or disenfranchised.
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Living the op-ed life
A normal day starts with emails, ends with emails (if it ever ends) and is interspersed with editing assignments, phonecalls, meetings and social media feeds. The desk shift might start around 10am in the morning, but subeditors are expected to have read the papers and checked their emails and social media feeds before coming in to work.
Enter: subeditor. Shift begins.
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The ugly side . . . of The Tribune’s pretty pages
A light hearted look at the creative process involved in making thought provoking designs on a daily basis.
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The Express Tribune’s creative process
When I was asked to be a part of the creative team for The Express Tribune, I was a little apprehensive to join. How was a graphic designer going to fit into the workflow of a newspaper? I did not want to just create beautiful “artwork” that was supposed to be arbitrarily placed in 6 or 8 columns to fill space or tart up the news.
This was the thought process that existed in the glamorous world of publication design before The Express Tribune’s launch, and all seasoned veterans from the editorial world were also uncertain as to how a dedicated design team would contribute to editorial content.
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The five lives of a reporter
I’m a reporter and a world class stalker but not the creepy kind, just the annoying sort. It’s like being a fetcher for a scientist; you grab pieces of reality and bring them back to the lab for further examination.
I’ve been a fetcher for five years now. For someone in her 20s, I feel I have the kind of experience very few do in this industry — I’ve seen the birth of a newspaper and witnessed it grow, expand, flourish. This experience has been a privilege, one of the most valued moments of my life.
Read more here.
Turnaround story
If you ever read a start-up/turnaround story that celebrates the ingenuity of the entrepreneur behind it, you can safely assume that it appeared in The Express Tribune.
That’s probably because business pages of other Pakistani newspapers seldom print anything beyond populist rhetoric defying logic and usual reportage of government officials.
In other words, a rapidly changing economy with a rising middle class and soaring corporate earnings is a story that other newspapers seem to have largely missed.
Read more here.
Silently winning, losing and winning battles
At our first anniversary, someone remarked that there was scepticism about The Express Tribune completing a year. The person then drew a comparison with Zardari’s government that also managed to sustain during the time. I did not understand that remark then – to this day I wonder what he actually meant. Was he complimenting our work? The mention of the former president made me feel otherwise.
I joined the newspaper when it had not launched, in October 2009, and after months of training, the paper saw the light of day in April 2010. The industry felt journalism was a field for the experienced and shots needed to be called by the old and wise. ET certainly changed that perception.
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Send slugs, file and repeat
I could not sleep the other night with my journalist wife — and it is not an exciting incident. She covers MQM and there was a late-night press conference.
On the other hand, I am a business reporter who covers energy and aviation sectors but, in reality, I really like eating away at Kazim and Farhan’s, fellow reporters, areas.
Read more here.
Cover-ing the best
We singled out 10 magazine cover stories from the last five years that were either cherished or chastised by our readers.
View them here.
From toddler to trailblazer
When I joined the Life & Style section, The Express Tribune was hardly three-days-old. With my affiliation with the publication dating back to its inception, I have seen it evolve among Pakistan’s English dailies. Having worked closely with Life & Style editors, sub editors and reporters over the years, I’ve witnessed that it is no easy feat to churn out stories about the once dormant arts and culture scene in the country, which has only recently picked up pace.
Read more here.
And it became our lifeline
It’s difficult to portray the soft image of any society when otherwise projected as a breeding ground for human rights infringements. Nobody cares if this is a misperception. That was essentially the dilemma of being a new English newspaper which designates two pages daily on arts and culture under the ‘Life & Style’ tag.
Over the course of five years, we have risen above these demons with grace and honesty. The Life & Style pages of The Express Tribune have not only made their mark as a credible source of local and international news but also a benchmark for quality arts and culture writing.
Read more here.
Angels in disguise
Take a look at the people behind the scenes of The Express Tribune here.
1,400km, a distance bridged with words
The city has bled profusely in the past half a decade. Pouring all that heartbreak on the pages has dried up our eyes; only for them to well up again with emotion we thought had been spent. The Army Public School attack last year tore our souls and stitched them up anew. Our senior reporter Manzoor Ali lost a cousin, but he refused to leave the office to grieve. Instead, he coordinated the coverage for the day, unbroken and undeterred. Our crime reporter Riaz Ahmad has since written nearly 20 profiles of the students and staffers whose lives were cut so ruthlessly short in the grizzly attack.
Read more here.
A full circle
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.
Read more here.
Living to tell the story, against all odds
It was a sweltering night of June back in 2011. The sound of an explosion broke the silence of Peshawar’s Khyber Supermarket. I left my apartment to enquire the nature of the blast, which had taken place at a local restaurant. An injured employee of the eatery told me it was caused by a gas cylinder. Relieved it was not a terror attack, I returned to my apartment, only to be jolted by another ear-piercing sound. The lights went out and shrieks engulfed the stiff night air. Around 50 people, including journalists, were killed in the deadly blast. Welcome to a reporter’s world in Peshawar.
Read more here.
It’s hard to forget your first love
People always crib about their jobs – how it’s the same thing over and over again, why must one wear matching socks and uncomfortable shoes every day, and really, does it HAVE to be so early in the morning? I guess that’s why I consider myself lucky that I spent the first two years after graduation in a newsroom. I could wake up at leisure, walk into office wearing flip flops and each day was different because Karachi is a chaotic city and I was working on the city desk.
Read more here.
ET charms reporter in 25 mins
I remember my first meeting with Kamal Siddiqi very clearly. It took place on July 10, 2010, in Karachi. Around 25 minutes into our meeting, I had become a member of The Express Tribune family.
Read more here.
The journey from gumnaam to badnaam
“What are the slugs firming today,” was the first text message I received from the city editor a day after I joined The Express Tribune in March 2010. I had no idea what a ‘slug’ was as I had been working in an evening, vernacular newspaper. Not once, in my seven years of working at the newspaper, had anyone asked me for ‘slugs’. I sought help from a colleague who informed me that a slug is a short name given to an article that is in production.
Read more here.
In a changing landscape
This five-year journey with The Express Tribune has been incredible. We not only broke a new path in print journalism in Pakistan, but with success. More than the challenge of charting a new course, the stated mission of the paper, “to promote liberal and democratic ideals” in society, is what prompted me to leave the country’s iconic daily, Dawn, and join the startup.
Read more here.
A day in the newsroom
It’s 4:30pm, and not a teaspoon is stirring. The search begins for our office boy-cum-part time prayer leader, Hafiz Waheed.
The search can be long, but today it is short. As is often the case, a few of the reporters have invited him to have a late lunch with them. He offers to quickly whip up a round of tea, but everyone chooses to self serve and let him eat. Minutes after the editorial team finish their round of self-serve tea, Hafi z pops in with a fresh batch. Caffeine addictions satisfied.
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Home is where the headaches are
November 26, 2010. I walked in to give a job interview at The Express Tribune. The paper, already known for its liberal stances, had recently launched an Islamabad edition, and even though I had been away from journalism for a few years, after hearing about an opening, I thought I would try my luck.
Read more here.
Are you still at the ‘Tribune’?
If only I made a buck for each time somebody asked me that…Clearly, the world seems to have moved on while I remain in a self-imposed limbo of ‘Newsroom Neverland’.
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A photo to remember
I have covered scores of demonstrations and clashes on the streets of Lahore since I started working as a photojournalist 26 years ago.
Till 2013, I would refer to my photos of the unrest in the city over the demolition of Babri Masjid in the early 1990s and the clashes between police and Jamaat-i-Islami activists during then Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpai’s visit. I felt that these photographs had brought me recognition as a photojournalist.
Read more here.
Capturing citizens making their own public space
Scores of people bathing in the Lahore Branch Canal to fight the scorching heat is not an uncommon sight in the city during the summers.
One of my long shots of the scene taken in July last year has stayed with me because of the story it told of residents of modest means trying to cope with the excruciating summer in the city. The photoshows families gathered in a portion of the canal – men, women and children – bathing in the water and sitting on the banks.
Read more here.
Juggling between law and religion
Court reports are concerned mostly with either lawyers or judges. They hardly ever deal with the court staffers who are the single most important source of such stories. This means a court reporter faces an uphill task in finding sources that can be helpful in digging deep and unearthing exclusive stories from courts.
Read more here.
Five years, five stories
For the Lahore desk, the best news stories so far in the past five years have emerged out of saturation reporting and collaborative work. Such reportage has allowed for insight and nuances that a single reporter may just miss out on.
Read more here.
For love of the printed word
In the summer of 2010, a colleague brought a new newspaper to work. The workplace had a number of publications coming in but this one made an immediate impact. The type face was bold, the pictures vibrant with colour and the stories were fresh. It was sassy without being saucy and with enough hard hitting content to make me read it cover to cover in one go. The newspaper was The Express Tribune (ET) and fast becoming the young reader’s choice.
Read more here.
Tribune blogs and I
Today is The Express Tribune’s five year anniversary and while it is a jubilant moment for the whole publication, it is one that is also tinged with reflection.
Read more here.
Dummies for the paper
Every newspaper must make money to survive. A sizeable chunk of this money comes from advertising.
The people who make sure this revenue-generating machine functions quietly but efficiently in the background are themselves often the backstage types—invisible but essential. Case in point – our very own traffic department, which acts as a bridge between the production, marketing and editorial departments to ensure all adverts are accounted for and placed on the pages appropriately.
Read more here.
The social network
It is my conviction that media with its ability to influence, access and engage multiple stakeholders can play a crucial role in bringing social change at a scale that is unmatched. To be able to do that for a living is a privilege.
The Corporate Communications & CSR division is dedicated to bringing social innovation, focusing on education, arts, health. The division looks to establish a counter-narrative for extremism and challenges peoples view and perceptions. We work in collaboration with our colleagues from across the Express Group to strategically leverage the knowledge, outreach and network of the media house for successful implementation of our initiatives.
Read more here.
Setting the standard: Keeping up with the times
Five years is a long time to juggle production, pre-press and administrative responsibilities and keep a newspaper’s sales afloat – that too with unflinching resolve. Yet, Express Media Executive Director Operations Ashfaqullah Khan will go the extra mile to ensure The Express Tribune reaches retailers on time every morning.
When the newspaper began its journey in 2010, Khan—who was already affiliated with Express Media Group and had a sales background—played a pivotal role in organising the framework for sales and distribution. Since its inception, he has managed all procedures between the creation of a print layout and final printing. “It isn’t an easy newspaper to bring out,” he says. “Since it is printed using a four-colour process, we have to be extra careful and ensure nothing goes wrong.”
Read more here.
With a paper this beautiful, marketing is a breeze: Azfar Nizami
Express Publications Executive Director Marketing and Sales Azfar M Nizami said when they decided to launch the broadsheet, they first studied the market.
“Do we have a market for something new? Is there any space besideDawn and The News which had English readers?” he recalled some of the questions which he had asked five years ago. They were answered after he went through the differentials, of which two were most compelling: The layout and the affiliation with an international brand.
Read more here.
A big byte
Responsible for keeping The Express Tribune’soperations systems running, the IT department, headed by Director Technical and IT Riffat Bajwa, is the heart of the organisation.
According to IT General Manager Anis Ahmed who is based in Lahore and has been with the organisation for 17 years, it was a tough decision to launch a new English newspaper, and the IT department was there to give support from the first day. “Express has traditionally been a tech-driven organisation, said Ahmed, adding The Express Tribune has grown immensely in the past five years.
Read more here.
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