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1.8.04
The Daily Dawn, oh Dawn!
First, don’t get me wrong. I have great respect for Dawn. It is a newspaper of unblemished integrity and stature. Heck, I wrote almost all of my articles for Dawn and no other newspaper. Though I don’t know whether it was my talent or Dawn’s deteriorating taste in humour.
I admire such legends of Pakistani journalism as Cowasjee and Irfan Husain and am a big fan of their writing and ideologues.
And that’s the problem with Dawn now. It thinks ALL its readers have the same age, status, and sense of humour of Cowasjee, Husain, once “Jaywalking” Jilani, et al (no offence meant to any of them, mind you.)
I think Dawn has taken its role as the one “founded by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah” a bit too seriously, and for a bit longer then necessary. It is a noble thing, I am sure, to emulate the example of the discipline Mr Jinnah exemplified. But it wouldn't be a little risky to realize that we’re not in the 50’s anymore, and fortunately or unfortunately, live in a country full of non-cigar smokers.
Dawn Magazine, for example, is a fine publication. It has similar integrity, credibility and suave humility. Unfortunately it also has the passion, vigor, vitality and humour of a Hawkesbay turtle.
Images, a fine ‘trendy’ spread, began with a promise of providing unrivalled, up to the mark fashion and entertainment coverage. Too bad its founders went into hibernation during the Junejo government and still haven’t found a way out of the cave.
Compared to the above big-wigs, it was indeed difficult how a mid-week Thursday Review could stay afloat. So it devised a clever plan: develop a fine, fine publication written and read by feminist mid-wives and final year literature students, with an occasional piece by any US/UK returned frowning young poor-thing finding it difficult ‘to adjust.’ Lovely!
The rest of the publication, including a beautiful parody of children’s magazine called Young World (originally designed and written for young Mohammad and Fatima Jinnah, apparently), is equally enjoying the same unblemished integrity, seriousness and quality of The Cadet College.
Sadly, the only enviable feature about their website is the cool, short domain name.
Oh, Dawn!
I admire such legends of Pakistani journalism as Cowasjee and Irfan Husain and am a big fan of their writing and ideologues.
And that’s the problem with Dawn now. It thinks ALL its readers have the same age, status, and sense of humour of Cowasjee, Husain, once “Jaywalking” Jilani, et al (no offence meant to any of them, mind you.)
I think Dawn has taken its role as the one “founded by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah” a bit too seriously, and for a bit longer then necessary. It is a noble thing, I am sure, to emulate the example of the discipline Mr Jinnah exemplified. But it wouldn't be a little risky to realize that we’re not in the 50’s anymore, and fortunately or unfortunately, live in a country full of non-cigar smokers.
Dawn Magazine, for example, is a fine publication. It has similar integrity, credibility and suave humility. Unfortunately it also has the passion, vigor, vitality and humour of a Hawkesbay turtle.
Images, a fine ‘trendy’ spread, began with a promise of providing unrivalled, up to the mark fashion and entertainment coverage. Too bad its founders went into hibernation during the Junejo government and still haven’t found a way out of the cave.
Compared to the above big-wigs, it was indeed difficult how a mid-week Thursday Review could stay afloat. So it devised a clever plan: develop a fine, fine publication written and read by feminist mid-wives and final year literature students, with an occasional piece by any US/UK returned frowning young poor-thing finding it difficult ‘to adjust.’ Lovely!
The rest of the publication, including a beautiful parody of children’s magazine called Young World (originally designed and written for young Mohammad and Fatima Jinnah, apparently), is equally enjoying the same unblemished integrity, seriousness and quality of The Cadet College.
Sadly, the only enviable feature about their website is the cool, short domain name.
Oh, Dawn!
6 Comments:
I think the Review (they dropped the Tuesday/Thursday ages ago) is the best part of Dawn, but I'm just a little biased.
I stand corrected!
And a warm welcome. :)
Dawn is boring and dull..In an age when most newspapers turn to creative and sasty headlines, this paper still gives out the same view as it did about50 yrs ago...
Tr reading Dailytimes.com.pk for a change...
And you would think that if a paper as established as Dawn can't afford to be a little 'with the times', who can? It's not as if it's a brand new paper grappling with a character developing phase or anything. Ah well, I'm sure the Haroons know better :)
I do check out Daily Times, especially their sexy-saucy Sunday magazine ;) Always a treat.
Welcome Maestro.
I was just visiting Pakistan from abroad (I had left Pakistan when I was a kid and haven't been back in almost 9 years). As I was reading Dawn [in print] for one of the first times in my life, I kept on running into grammatical errors and mistakes. Mind you, it wasn't just one article, but almost every single one I came across...
Consequently, all the respect I had for Dawn disappeared (along with the naive love I had for Pakistan in my youth (although that's another story entirely)). I was left surprised and dismayed by the lack of professionalism displayed by the most widely read English newspaper in Pakistan.
After about two months, however, I started to see that this ritualistic disregard for professionalism was (and will be for years to come) a part of life in Pakistan. It seems (to me, at least) that this is primarily because nobody rewards professionalism, nobody cares for it, and, really, nobody expects it (at least not from established businesses such as Dawn).
I realized then that it's really not justified for Dawn to demand the best from its writers since (a) its writers would probably have to go back to grade school to learn proper grammar (although who would be able to make them go back to school with twelve-year-olds), (b) only less than .00001% (my estimation) of Dawn's readers would even be able to tell the difference, and (c) those readers that actually could tell the difference wouldn't stop reading since they don't have any other alternative - as far as I'm aware, Dawn doesn't have any major competition in print).
Without any competition, it's simply not economical for Dawn to consider hiring a "grammatician" (or ten). It'd be a waste of money - and I agree. I guess, then, that Dawn is simply allowed to be as mediocre as it likes - without anybody caring either way. Uh, hold on... I think I heard some grinding noise (?) from the house next door. On no, wait: that's just the Quaid turning in his grave.
(Imran)
Welcome to the blog, Imran. :)
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