By Fasih Ahmed
Inaugural Daniel Pearl Fellow
Assistant news editor, The Friday Times
Copy editor, Daily Times
Lahore, Pakistan
Hosted by the Washington, D.C. bureau of The Wall Street Journal

A respected English-language Pakistani newspaper recently declared on its front page that its investigations had revealed the identity of the embassy that the British Home Office had allegedly attempted to bug. The use of the term “investigations” in the espionage story was casual at best, especially since there were only around 80 words worth of independent reporting in the 700-word story, which contained whole passages lifted from London’s The Sunday Times, the paper that had originally broken the story but not named the embassy (although some Indian newspapers had). The Pakistani newspaper took full credit, patting itself on the back in an editorial. This episode typifies the intellectual oversight and infidelity that is not the exclusive preserve of the Pakistani press but certainly characteristic of it.

The Jayson Blair episode at The New York Times and the Andrew “Sexed Up” Gilligan episode at the BBC have been good for journalism in America and Britain, respectively. The American press seems now to hold its own up to more exacting standards and the usually blithe British press, which wears its biases unabashedly on its sleeve, seems to have sobered up, at least to a small extent. The Pakistani reaction to these stories of intellectual oversight and infidelity was one of relief, even joy. Commentators chose to see the hackwork of Blair and Gilligan at these institutions as the prevalent norm and used it to validate their own entrenched positions and practices and pardon their own instances of public disservice. While most Pakistani newspapers reflect and even exaggerate society’s anti-America bias, they have long held the standards of American — not British — journalism as the benchmark. This is a fact not openly acknowledged. And so the “investigative” desk pieces, the anonymous single source stories continued unapologetically in most Pakistani newspapers, which seemed more unwilling now than ever before to question either themselves or their stories.

The greatest responsibility falls on the shoulders of the press in any society. But this is especially true in Pakistan, a country at the crossroads. The choices that the nation makes now and in the near future will determine how we are to proceed. Will Pakistan emerge as a moderate Islamic country as its founders envisioned or will it fail as a state? Pakistan must decide now whether it will embrace pragmatism and stability or continue to cleave to emotionalism and volatility. The importance of a free and responsible press in such an environment cannot be overstated. It is the duty of the press to ensure the voices of moderation reach the public consciousness as clearly as the voice fanning the fires of religio-ethnic nationalism. The nation must not be shielded. It must be shown the uncomfortable whole truth, warts and all and free of ideological blind spots so that the choices that are made are informed choices.

This then is what I hope to accomplish with The Standard, a weekly newsmagazine I plan launching in Pakistan within the next three years. Modeled after Newsweek and Time, The Economist and India Today, the general interest English-language publication will include team players of all ideological bents, all with at least three to five years of reporting experience. The newsmagazine will be privately owned, with all staff members having a financial stake in it, and it will not shy from broaching taboos and speaking of the problems that ail Pakistan. Unlike other publications in Pakistan, The Standard will be a mouthpiece for no one, not the liberals and not the conservatives. It will remove itself from the culture of oral tradition and story telling that tends to blur the line between fact and fiction. It will build currency by adhering to the strictest best practices in journalism. It will serve as the newspaper of record.

In the meanwhile, there are other milestones to reach. By January, I shall be back in Lahore, back at work at The Friday Times and Daily Times — both of which I have been writing for from Washington. For the first few months, at least until March or April, I intend on working closely with beat reporters “coaching” them in developing stories and working with them on longer, more ambitious projects. I expect this will be a painful process and will require reserves of patience from both parties. Some reporters will not want to deal with someone much younger than them, most would not have the patience or attention span to work on a single story for longer than two days and nearly all of them will not take kindly to any form of criticism. During the same time, the tentative plan also has me spending some time with the team that is developing a separate metropolitan section for the daily. This should not be as painful a process since it will require working with the chief news editor, the chief reporter and the editor-in-chief — all of whom I usually work with. There are also plans to redesign the weekly, an always welcome and therapeutic assignment. Once these tasks are accomplished, I intend on moving to the capital, Islamabad, to cover the defense beat for both publications.

After at least one year on the defense beat (which will include reporting on military operations in the war against terrorism), I plan on going to graduate school. Where I’ll end up will depend, at this point, on whether I can afford the costs of the program. I intend to pursue a one-year master’s degree in international relations and specialize in Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan relations within the broader context of South Asia and Middle East links.

I hope I will have the time either in Pakistan while working for The Friday Times and Daily Times or at graduate school to pick up another Asian language, either Arabic or Farsi. These language skills would be especially helpful were I to report from Kabul or Tehran.

This renewed sense of mission comes from my own experience as an AFPF Fellow in Washington and from the shared experiences of nine other Fellows at their newspapers across America. Now familiar with their work, I no longer see anyone in this newsroom as normal regular people. They’ve become my role models. And watching them at their jobs — interviewing and chatting up people, writing and revising stories, going about collegially — has been an educational experience all by itself. This is the level of excellence I now strive for.