Destroyer: Rubies

News

Hunter S. Thompson Book Ad. (NYTIMES)

campaign poster

Front Page...

...another eight-column newsday for pakistani papers

Opinion pieces: an artform in Urdu journalism

I grew up reading various opinion pieces in Jang newspaper. Opinion pieces, "Columns" as they are known, are considered to be one of the major offering of any urdu newspaper. The roster of regular Columnists that a daily newspaper maintains, is considered to be a mark of prestige and it is a major selling point. I consider the writing, the shape and the masterful application of factual lacuna for rhetorical purposes of columns as a major artform.

Columns are supposed to cover opinions mainly related to the burning political issues of the time. The writings are meant to be incisive, analytical and factual and carry an air of self-importance. But this whole circus of punditry is hardly about any of those things. It is like a fluid narrative where the main voice, the invisible protagonist, the writer gets to shape a narrative within. The buried narrative unfolds in real-time bit by bit, column after column and accumulates layers as years pile up. The writer sometimes give a nod to this by speaking outside of his construction but rarely. Like for example today, one of the veteran journalist has put in a note at the end of his column in which he offered sarcastically an apology to his readers just in case, due to changing political situation, his today's subject matter becomes totally irrelevant by the time his creation comes out on paper. Oh, well.

PS: Oh, I absolutely like the title. It's called Temporary Murder referring the absurdity of "suspending" the constitution

Cover-page of a Pakistani Newspaper

This is the standard print edition of an Urdu newspaper in Pakistan. It folds in the middle and the news-stories are spread around in the top and bottom-half of the paper in a spatially descending format according to their importance. The main headline is written in the centre of the top-half with an special calligraphic font and carries a larger font-size than other news as it is obvious. Normally, the main headline is not spread out from one end (starting from right) to the other end of the page unless, the paper wants to stress the fateful nature of the headline content. In that case, the main-headline border which is enveloping here: a very thickset font, gushing decorative hyphens and slanted symbols around the text, runs horizontally across the page (referred to as an eight-column headline) as it can be seen in the posted image. The main-headline reads (literal translation):

Emergency Imposed, Constitution Suspended, PCO* Arrived, Chief Justice Fired

*PCO: provisional constitution order enforced by the coup-maker to replace the constitution

Frederick Mershimer's Subway

[Notes: It's done with a 17th century printing process that was once used by Escher]