How Pakistan’s new media is breaking the old code of silence
A dynamic new media portal in Pakistan is giving citizen journalists with diverse views what they want the most — space. Laxmi Murthy catches up with Raza Rumi, founder editor of Naya Daur.
Media outlets in Pakistan have mushroomed since private television was launched in 2007. But what passes as news is pretty much the same wherever you look. It’s a reminder that more voices lose their value when they don’t bring diversity to their audience. That’s a gap that new media startups like Naya Daur Media (NDM) are trying to fill by challenging the taboos of old media without paywalls or corporate advertising.
“It sounds grandiose,” says founding editor Raza Rumi, “but what we actually do is produce news and commentary that we believe is in people’s interest and what they want to know and think about.”
Pakistan boasts about 30 private television channels and over 4,000 registered newspapers with a combined circulation of about 20 million. But here’s the thing: most Pakistanis seem to be consuming more or less the same news. According to readership figures from Gallup Pakistan, in 2018, ten newspapers in the country cornered 86 percent of the readership. In fact, the top four newspapers grabbed 70 percent of the audience share and the remaining six had to make do with just 16 percent. The information ministry in April this year de-notified as many as 6000 “dummy” newspapers.
When Dawn News launched the first commercial TV network, there was a surge of hope that there could be a counter to the state-controlled narrative shaped by Pakistan TV (PTV). But far from living up to their promise of providing a credible counter narrative, competition with digital platforms and social media caused private television channels to enter a frenzied rush to remain relevant. As media analyst Adnan Rehmat says: “The sector has morphed into a cacophonous landscape of dozens of independent news and entertainment channels that frenetically vie for public attention.”
Reeling under multiple crises of falling revenue, job losses, state regulation and censorship accompanied by high occupational risks (Pakistan regularly ranks high on lists of “most dangerous” countries for journalists), content remains confined to sensation, politics and celebrity stalking.
Filling the void
Enter Naya Daur Media (NDM) (Naya Daur translates as “new age”), a bi-lingual online citizen journalism portal which promises to “project Pakistan’s diversity and pluralism”. It’s trying to break the boundaries and conventions of legacy journalism says founder editor Raza Rumi, by involving Pakistan’s youth and citizens who are already producing online content:
“The idea is to get those voices, filmmakers, videographers, to give space to engage with ongoing issues of Pakistan.”
Though inspired by “movement journalism”, he insists that NDM is not “just” a progressive platform. Their model of journalism aims to deconstruct hierarchies between editors, reporters and contributors and work collaboratively to both produce and present media content.
As in most of south Asia, Pakistani media, especially electronic, is largely corporatised or state controlled. The result? Television (and the less significant print) ignores key issues such as women’s rights, human rights, climate change, youth affairs, child sexual abuse — unless it’s sensational enough to lure viewers or blame the political party in power.
The digital start-up launched in 2017 after ten Pakistanis, mostly in the diaspora, pledged support to start an independent media platform. Crowdfunding has kept it going. As editor, Raza contributed his time, over and above his day job at a university.
They started small, with videos on news and critical issues facing Pakistan and South Asia. They got enough traction to start an English website in 2018 and later that year, an Urdu website and YouTube channel. “By the end of 2018, we were fully functional with content on different channels and social platforms, engaging actively with online audiences in Pakistan, followed by India and readers in the US and UK,” says Raza.
Numbers vary, but the reach through the online portal is up to a million views, the YouTube channel about 2.3 million views per month, and with Facebook and Twitter, the combined outreach is in hundreds of thousands every month.
“My priority was to set it up and then put together a team of young journalists and handed it over to them. We have a senior person as executive editor and I am founding editor. But the day to day running is handled by millennials.” The core team of ten editors, sub editors and video editors is paid. Their 300–400 voluntary contributors are as yet not paid.
Beyond the headlines
News at NDM is carefully curated. “We only pick up news where we showcase what mainstream is not covering, for example sexual harassment in schools, public offices, universities. We have been the ones to consistently follow up and publish commentaries and analysis. We critique the neo-liberal model of growth and talk about redistribution of wealth and overcoming inequalities, ” says Raza.
Taboo topics are Naya Daur’s strength. Issues like blasphemy laws and minority rights or dissent (considered “anti-Pakistan”) do not get discussed by the traditional media. The plight of the Ahmadi community is rarely mentioned now. So, ‘progressive’ for the young team means not shying away from taking a stand. For example, rather than reinforce the narrative of “honour killings” NDM exposes “dishonourable” killings, putting perpetrators on the spot.
Many taboos are broken by social media. Facebook and Twitter can challenge the silence of the media. Raza cautions: “We have made some mistakes but continue to learn from the process of navigating citizen journalism. There has to be some level of gate-keeping and verification, which we carry out. Social media has huge issues, in Pakistan and India. But the reality is that it is there and in fact plays an important role in a controlled media environment.”
For example, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM, fighting for the protection of the Pashtuns) that started in 2018 suddenly dropped off the media radar due to strictures from the government. Many newspapers stopped covering the movement and even started rejecting op-eds. And so Naya Daur began to publish op-eds rejected by others — lawyers, politicians etc which gave another side from the state narrative, to counter the media blackout about the PTM.
Inevitably, hate mail accompanied each story that broke the silence of the mainstream media.
Accusations of ‘fake news’, being funded by India’s intelligence agency RAW, or getting labelled a CIA mouthpiece are all taken in good humour.
Breaking omerta
The precarious finances of the media in Pakistan, make them reluctant to upset the main sources of revenue — government and corporations. While the heavy-handed clampdown on the media since 2016 has been obvious, a parallel, more insidious track of self-censorship ensures that investigative exposes of corporate crimes or big business are spiked. Few want to annoy the power centres — the ruling political party, military or big business.
Not NDM. “We went ahead and commissioned and published reports for example against corporations for selling harmful baby food etc. Because of advertising pressure, big media are not willing to publish these critiques since media owners have interests in big corporations.”
Naya Daur also consistently took on powerful real estate tycoon Malik Riaz who reached a settlement with Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) for USD 250 million in a money laundering case. His name was one that few anchors on Pakistan television dared to even whisper (one guest on a talk show was muted every time he uttered Riaz’s name) and newspapers in the country barely mentioned the case. “We are not obliged to him for advertising, so we published reports, commentary and op-eds on Malik Riaz and his shady deals,” says Raza.
Tip toeing through the minefields of constitutionally mandated restrictions on freedom of expression — criticising the judiciary, the security forces or Islam — is not easy, since the strictures are vague and have a broad sweep. One of the most sensitive issues is blasphemy where overstepping the line puts staff lives in danger.
Raza Rumi himself is no stranger to being in the firing line, quite literally. In 2014, his driver was killed when he was shot at by extremists in Lahore. Raza escaped with minor injuries. The military court took it up as a terrorist case and sentenced the perpetrators. Their appeal is pending in the superior courts.
Naya Daur’s managing editor Ailia Zehra was subjected to death threats and rape threats on social media, a common tool to intimidate journalists, especially women, into silence.
And now, looking past Covid
Before Covid19, NDM was looking at building its presence offline, starting with a book launch, a talk in Lahore and a seminar in Islamabad on the future of digital media. Fund-raisers in the US met with less success, but represented small steps towards building communities offline and online among Pakistanis both in the country and in the diaspora.
While a wholly crowd-funded, citizen-driven platform is the goal, Google ads help revenue generation, though rates are lower in South Asia. Advertisements from non-profits, foundations and charities are also in the pipeline, in the hope that a savvy marketing team can sell the idea of independent journalism.
“We’re not in favour of putting content behind paywalls because the economy has drastically shrunk. It is unwise to expect people to pay when they are struggling for their daily needs.”
The challenge has been to find the right kind of journalists — those who share the vision. It has not been easy and NDM has battled high turnover. Of course, staying afloat amid increasing restrictions is also a challenge. The website was taken down in 2018 and nayadaur.net was banned. Then again in January 2020 the website disappeared, but they managed to get it up and running again. “Digital platforms are vulnerable to being hacked or shutdown, unlike newspapers which still have unions and some systems in place,” says Raza.
And yet, they just keep plugging on, conscience keepers and archivists. Take the column “Lest we forget” remembering the victims of the Shia genocide or the massacre of lawyers in Quetta. Because the New Age is committed to memorialising the old, the thousands unknown who stood up to be counted.
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Laxmi Murthy is a journalist, writer and researcher based in Bengaluru.
This report was written for the September 2020 issue of The Story, a fortnightly newsletter on reinventing journalism in the Asia Pacific, published by Jacqui Park. You can sign up for the newsletter here: http://bit.ly/TheStory-AsiaPacific
