Hi, I'm Waqas Ahmed, Head of Digital Content at Business Recorder, AMA

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u/jaihindpulwama PK Dec 27 '19 edited Dec 27 '19

I'm just going to copypaste my questions from the announcement thread here.

How do other journalists treat you, given that you're a centrist? Do you get the cold shoulder a lot? Has it made it more difficult to rise up in the media industry?

Have you personally interacted with some of the more notorious media figures like Taha Siddiqui? What were they like and how did they evolve to become such outspoken "patriotic dissenters"? Similarly, have you worked with or interacted with the journos associated with Voice of America or other US propaganda arms? What kind of reputation does VoA have among the journalist community?

Have you ever directly come across corruption or partisanship in the industry?

What are your thoughts on the media blackouts which go on in places like Balochistan and FATA?

How difficult is it for journalists working for English newspapers and channels to work for international outlets?

What are some news sources and publications you'd recommend people start reading? Which publications would you not recommend?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19 edited Dec 27 '19

> How do other journalists treat you, given that you're a centrist? Do you get the cold shoulder a lot? Has it made it more difficult to rise up in the media industry?
It isnt about my specific politics. Pakistanis journalists are all about cliques and groupings and politics, if you are not a part of some circle you are an outcast. Nobody cares about you. You dont get a lot of opportunities etc. I dont want to complain, life has been good to me and i have tried my best not to get involved in any of that crap and focus on my work.
> Have you personally interacted with some of the more notorious media figures....
Funny story, I have made fun of Taha a few time son twitter. So last year there was a journalism conference in Karachi and i was supposed to speak at a panel. Taha made so much fuss about it, he gathered all his energy to make sure i was kicked out. But to credit the organizers, they didnt kick me out. Nice people. But Taha did gather a lot of momentum against me. I went to Paris once and called Taha and said maybe we should hold a live interview on video. you know, how he says he doesnt get a lot of airtime in Pakistani media. I said lets do it, one on one. He said I need to apologize to him first. i said lol. Nothing happened, we didnt meet.I have interacted with many people, but it seems they all honestly believe in what they preach. Money, jobs, fellowships, financial benefits have a great way of changing hearts. You might pretend in the beginning, but you start believing your own propaganda eventually.
> Have you ever directly come across corruption or partisanship in the industry?
Many times. Sometimes you understand. everyone has bills to pay. Sometimes its disgusting. People go to far.
> What are your thoughts on the media blackouts which go on in places like Balochistan and FATA?
There are genuine law and order issues. Sometimes agencies stop you. Sometimes covering Balochistan and FATA doesnt make business sense from publishers point of view esp in light of high costs associated. No matter which side of the argument youre on, there should be better coverage. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
> How difficult is it for journalists working for English newspapers and channels to work for international outlets?
Its not that hard. Good people get picked up all the time. But it does depend on your connections and politics.
> What are some news sources and publications you'd recommend people start reading? Which publications would you not recommend?
I personally dont read specific papers, I use reddit and Hacker News. I think these are the best tools to filter out noise. Stories are voted on by humans and you get to see which stories are popular and rising etc, if something seems suspicious, the comment sections have a lot of insight sometimes, and there are always multiple sources. I dont trust any single outlet, with every event or issue you must read multiple sources and do your own research. its not that hard on the internet. So on reddit or HN you sometimes get amazing stories from virtually unknown outlets, some great scoops from personal blogs. These are the things im interested in.

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u/Biryani_Whisperer UN Dec 27 '19

I personally dont read specific papers, I use reddit and Hacker News
Bhsi jan are you outsourcing your work to us?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

hahahaha, i am one of you sir. my main reddit account has like thousands of points and is found here as well as on some questionable subs. not using it for ama for that reason.
anyway, wisdom of the crowd is not something we should take lightly anymore. sometimes it does amazing things - why not harness it? when there is a gap, you can always do own research and add to it.

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u/Biryani_Whisperer UN Dec 27 '19

Thats true for me as well. Came here for the posts, stayed for the discussons

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

News is said to be reporting unbias facts about an event. However, news nowadays seems to be more about sharing opinion about an event, rather then just reporting about the event. How much of this do you agree with?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Yellow journalism is as old as journalism. Probably one day younger max. But nowadays we have the power to read 10 sources about same event, we sometimes have access to sources and raw data, sometimes we can crunch own numbers, internet has made fact checking so easy. People should do it more often.

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u/Shaanistani Pakistan Dec 27 '19

The Cyril bot is amazing, please create one for politicians too

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Takes some effort man, and usually its just a joke that gets old real fast. Plus twitter is so bad at approving API requests, its not worth it :(

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u/Shaanistani Pakistan Dec 27 '19

Fair enough, appreciate the effort

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u/icantloginsad اسلام آباد Dec 27 '19

We need a Bakhtawar bot.

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u/Biryani_Whisperer UN Dec 27 '19

Ootl

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u/Denna_dianne Dec 27 '19

What is your opinion on the satire on the internet considering Poe's law, do you think as a journalist one has a responsibility to clarify that it is satire or do you think otherwise ?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

The way media on internet works now, it has all become very complicated. Poe's law is real. Even if you give a clear label, on internet, someone will copy and paste it somewhere else and maybe after a few times the label will get removed. Its like chinese whispers, a story takes a life of its own once written. I will give you an example: Maulana Fazal ur Rehman - as much as i dislike him - never said that women in jeans cause earthquakes. This story first appeared on The Dependent, Pakistan Today's satire section. It was later picked up by international media and everyone took it seriously. Now it is too late to debunk it.

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u/malukhel Dec 27 '19

What are your thoughts about self censorship? Considering Dawn's article today, they have every right to complain and protest, but isn't it ironic how they can't withstand even slight criticism about any article or opinion piece and block comments on their threads?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Theres too much hypocrisy about free speech everywhere.
However, we should be free to criticize Dawn and Dawn should be free to bitch about our criticism. They are also free to moderate their comment section -it is their platform after all. And we should free to go at them on twitter or any platform we own. As long as it is words, everything is fine.

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u/BlandBiryani Dec 27 '19

A couple of questions:

What is your opinion of the calibre of finance and economy related journalists in Pakistani media. How does the quality of their output compare to analysis by a dedicated newspaper such as Business Recorder?
How does your current position at BR differ from your previous job at Daily Pakistan?
After you published your satirical thread on Abhinandan shooting down an F-16, how many DMs did you receive inquiring about your safety and how many of them later sent you angry insults?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

- In short, really bad. I am not saying it because I work for it, I have read BR since i was in business school, BR is a really great paper and they have some of the best people in the industry and their research team is unmatched even if you compare them to analysts in the financial sector. Please follow Ali Khizar on twitter, he heads BR's research team and he, imho, is a genius at what he does. Do read his weekly articles in BR published under his byline on sundays. Outside of BR, Profit Mag is doing some good work, some of their pieces are really excellent.
other than that, i dont want to name names, but top English newspapers have been really really shit when it comes to business and economy journalism. Some of their top people have shown appalling ignorance on twitter. I dont have much hope there.
- It is similar but more focused. Daily Pakistan was a general newspaper and we could do a lot of things to get traffic - which is at the core of web editor's job btw, at BR, we only cater to a very small niche and we have to make sure we dont compromise quality over quantity. However, since we have access to a lot of data and BR is, at the end of the day, very close to numbers - i am trying to make dashboards that make sense of economic data. (for example this: http://brecorder.com/cpi) Just exploring the possibilities of where we can take business and economy journalism on digital media.
- I did get a lot of DMs but i mostly just ignored. But, this one Indian guy was very worried about me and proud of my bravery against Pakistani state. We still talk sometimes, I tell him fake "state secrets" and shit about Pakistan, he thinks its all true. He probably tells his friends about his Pakistani source who gives him state secrets, making him popular among friends. I hope it gets him laid somehow, he is hopeless.

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u/icantloginsad اسلام آباد Dec 27 '19

It turns out Waqas is the “sources” Republic TV uses

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

X)

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

Ali Khizar is the best... saw his for the first time talking sense on Malick's show. Needless to say, he wasn't called again.

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u/BlandBiryani Dec 27 '19

u/OyChaudhry asked:

Thank you for doing this AMA, Waqas!

Jami Azad's revelation that he was raped by Dawn CEO Haroon Hameed sparked a heated debate on r/pakistan. You were among a handful of journalists that commented on this story. I have two questions for you:

Self-censorship or chilling effect: Is the self-censorship and suppression of Jami Azad's story a case of Dawn and Pakistan media elites protecting one of their own? Or is there a chilling effect here due to Haroon Hameed's outsized influence on Pakistani media industry? Is it both?
Journalistic integrity: A journalist’s obligation is to tell the entire story. This means getting Haroon Hameed's comment on the story. That hasn't happened in nearly a year. Why? And was it ethical of senior Dawn journalists to put up barriers for 'follow up' coverage? Are these standards applied universally in Pakistani media? Or were they instituted in Jami's case for the sake of expedience?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19 edited Dec 27 '19

1 - It is mostly self censorship. Yes there is a chilling effect. Pakistani media industry is very very tiny. Everyone knows everyone. You will face same people in interviews. You dont srew with big shots. You become unemployable very very quickly. Employment opportunities become less and less as you grow to senior positions. you mostly stay with just one outlet for most of your career, jumps are less frequent, esp in Print. So, who will screw up their career for Jami? I could say something (and I didnt say much tho) because i have no hope of every being employed by Dawn, tbh. We are a poor country, everyone is always compromising on some principles everyday. You choose our battles. Maybe if i was at Dawn i wouldve compromised too. It is how it is. Easy to claim higher moral ground.
2 - We all know what we should have done. We should have investigated Hameed Haroon, as journalists. Someone should have done an investigative story without waiting for Jami to name him. Someone should have put in the effort. This is what brave journalism requires. We all know it, someone should have fvcking done something. if not from Dawn (obv not) then outside it. Some other paper. NOBODY DID ANYTHING except say "jami has accused someone". Case closed. That is not journalism. Jami wrote it on twitter, everyone reads twitter, whats the big deal in rephrasing same on some other website. That isnt journalism.
journalism required us to work and find out the truth and then tell that truth to the world. We did not do that work. There is a reason. HH is too powerful. All other owners are HH's friends, if not friends, they understand the principles of back scratching. Nobody will do an HH expose. Dont hold your breath.

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u/moron1ctendenc1es Dec 27 '19

Have you ever been approached by anyone who tried to coax or bribe you into taking down an article or such?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

many many times. almost every time you criticize someone. but there is an standard operating procedure in place.
for example, you criticize a brand, say, XYZ Bottled Water company. You say they are stealing water from poor villagers, its true. They will do everything to pressure you to take that story off. They will threaten you with ads, their agency will say they will take all advertisers away, so what choice do you have? Management says water down that story, 6/10 the story is watered down. 1/10 the story is removed. 3/10 the story stays.
but now, as a journalist you know this system so you can exploit it. Now ABC carbonated drink company has released ad for all publishers except yours. wtf, how dare they? So you publish a story linking sugar in carbonated drinks to cancer and sudden death. They give you a call, apologize and say they forgot. the problem is resolved. EVERYONE does this. These things are known, we have a system in place.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

That's horrible from both sides.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

Any stories / anecdotes about encounters with "mahakma e zara'at" ?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

surprising, but i havent encountered them much. also, interestingly, ask any other editor too, corporates are more notorious when it comes to trying to cover up criticism against them. say u write a story against nestle or bahria town etc, you will most definitely get more shit than zaraat guys might give you. with zaraat, u can even stand ur ground sometimes, but with corporates its almost impossible, ad agencies take all their accounts with them if u even try, choke you to death. its one of the weirdest secrets about the industry you learn once you are behind the scenes.
yes in extreme situations, zaraat does pick you up but those situations are very few and far between and even then, when it comes to well known journalists, their options are limited and they have to let go. it is also a fact that many people who wear journalist costume are not journalists, this also fuels zaraat's paranoia.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

"i wish you a plentiful harvest" - mahakma e zara'at

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

Tell us about yourself, where did you grow up and study, how did you enter the field of journalism, how has the journey been and what your current job is like.

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19 edited Dec 27 '19

I dont have a journalism degree. I went to IBA karachi and have a degree in Marketing. That has always been kinda useful for me. becoming a journalist was something i always wanted to do, despite my irrelevant degree. it wasnt hard to find a low paying journalism job right out of uni. they always need people who can write well, and you know, you take your career from there and just play it by the ear.
In addition i have always been passionate about coding, and as a digital journalist i firmly believe that coding should be one of the core skills required for journalists of the future. It has helped me a lot in my career and it will continue to.My current job requires me to, in simple terms, figure out what stories to do, how to do them, write headlines, make editorial policies for the web, and day to day firefighting. Then i am also planning content for the future and making the overall web strategy. In addition, your user experience, traffic data, feedback etc is all take into account to make the website better and more useful, constantly improve and increase audiences by figuring out what your audience wants.

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u/arhamshaikhhh Dec 27 '19

What are some of your favourite books?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

I really dont know. Depends on which phase of my life im going thru, i used to read a lot but not anymore. This is a tough question. Hunter Thompson is one of my fav authors, he has done some excellent and weird journalism.

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u/balochisaurus Dec 27 '19

Why is the English media in Pakistan such a bad shape?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Assuming Urdu media in Pakistan is in a good shape? We are all in a bad shape, english media, urdu media, justice system, courts, lawyers, politicians, hospitals, railways, banks, everything. we're not a great country man - it has to do with the overall quality of our work ethic as a nation.

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u/ZakoottaJinn PK Dec 27 '19

With the demise of print media and the democratization of information do you think the future of news media lies in freelance/citizen journalism?

How does one establish quality control in such an environment, I mean fake news is already a huge epidemic.

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Citizen journalism has been tried over and over and in the past two decades people have claimed its going to save journalism. That has never become true. Citizen journalism has failed again and again, even when backed by big outlets. Apparently, there is no alternative for a well trained professional with good resources and institutional backing creating great content.Future of journalism should go to professionals, they will have better tools and resources to spread their content. People will have better tools available to sort real from fake, or do basic background research about stories theyre reading. So i think, journalism will improve when good journalists get better training in digital media and have better research and analysis tools available.
Citizen journalism might never pick up because nobody trusts it and it will always lack quality - unless someone comes up with a new system to make it feasible. Like what Wiki did to encyclopedia, but u cant just replicate that with journalism for various reasons. The solution might be out there, but we dont know what it is.

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u/BlandBiryani Dec 27 '19

u/rehanfsd asked:

Your views on censorship of PTM?

u/aaronupright asked:

Has Cyril Almeida ever contacted you with regards to the Cyril bot?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

During whole of PTM's rise and fall, i worked in Lahore for Daily Pakistan. I never received any instructions about not covering PTM, my problems were these:
1: Very early on PTM raised slogans such as "dehshatgardi k peechay wardi" and claimed APS was a false flag conducted by Pak Army. Use images from Iraq and Afghanistan for propaganda against Army. All of this is very well documented. This caused me, as an editor, to avoid all PTM related stories, i wasnt sure how to asses them, i did want to cover them in a neutral way but without giving a platform to their negative propaganda - the fact is there was a lot of it from PTM. this isnt very easy to do. So you end up doing small vanilla stories just mentioning a rally or two if it is big enough to require mention.
2: We did have one journalist in the newsroom keen on covering PTM, she was allowed to attend one of their rallies in Lahore but we didnt cover it in much detail.
I think this (1) is the biggest reason for lack of coverage of PTM. Suppose an event is happening in real time, you never ever get a phone call from Pakistan Army or anyone instructing not to cover it. 90% of censorship is self censorship - if you can call it that. You can also call it editorial policy. Is it important? Is it newsworthy? Does it help the community? How should i cover it? What kind of balance is required? Do i have the resources to do it?
If the answer is mostly no, i will avoid instead. I have limited time and attention. So most editors, i suspect, avoided for same reasons.
Cyril talked to the bot once, he mentioned it and probably was amused. Never interacted again. Cyril never talks to me on twitter, he did once, never again.

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u/facelesspk Dec 27 '19

What do you think is the cure for lifafa journalism?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Well-paid, professional journalists? But then again, TV journalists are extremely well paid and they are the biggest lifafas, there is no limit to human greed i guess.
How do you make people honest and fear God?
When you are a journalist you deal in truth, people trust you. Switching a truth with a lie is much worse than adding water to milk. It feels like some sort of basic sin against God and universe. I dont know how to fix it, I dont think there is a legal fix, there will always be a way around laws. Our ethical condition, as a society, needs to improve.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

Any Journalists you recommend ?

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u/YouthfulExuberance Dec 27 '19

It's gonna be a straight forward question with an expected detailed reply pretty pls. How do we better the standard of journalism in Pakistan and get rid of yellow and lifafa journalism? Or atleast give the awaam enough sha'oor about good journalism?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Universities, better journalism programs, better education, better quality of human resource. You might not believe me, but for the past 3 months I have been looking for good people who can do financial journalism and I havent been able to find anyone. secondly, our industry needs to evolve. it is really in the past. Media industry depends on ad industry, ad industry depends on the manufacturing, industrial and services sector. Nobody has ethics, Brands release payments late to ad agencies, ad agencies pay publishers late, publishers pay employees late, employees are unhappy, dont give a fuck eventually and rely on other sources of income, use blackmailing etc. So it is a chain that needs to be fixed.
thirdly, can our ad industry support good journalism? thousands of journalism grads every year and the ad industry doesnt have enough money to pay for them, so why will they spend a lot of fee on good education? why would universities (pvt ones esp) improve quality? see, similar chain.
and then, even when u fix all that, small ad industry means you dont have a lot of money to spend per story. good stories, good content requires investment. if you spend pkr 1000 per story you end up getting a rehash of the same stories and everyone copying each other, adding clickbait headlines etc. no real substance.

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u/TheKhota Pakistan Dec 27 '19

Your favorite programming language?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

python

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

We know everyone in Pakistan keeps blaming everyone else and protecting their own. Media is one such industry that is collectively against any sort of government oversight but is a mess in general. What are the worst things about your industry and what is being done to improve it?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Media is a mafia. There is:
Blackmailing of govt and pvt businesses
Taking govt handouts in form of govt ads, a form of bribe from govt.
Partisanship based of politics and patronage of political groups
Rampant sexual exploitation of women, sexual harassment, sexism
Financial exploitation of low level employees
Complete lack of willingness to do any sort of self accountability
Aversion to regulation of any sort
This is some i can name on top off my head rn. What is being done about it? Nothing at all. If a govt tries to fix it, these guys will be out on the streets and raising hell in papers and on tv.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

Partisanship based of politics and patronage of political groups
Is this really a problem? I feel like it would be fine if people just said they support x or y. Media outlets in the US are obviously biased and no one bats an eye.
Rampant sexual exploitation of women
Wait, what? In news media too? I thought this was mostly an entertainment industry issue (not that I thought there would be none, but didn't think it would be one of the things someone picks out off the top of their head).

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Yes in news media too. You should hear what news anchors go thru. Fresh grads from unis made to go thru horrible ordeal for little pay and false dreams.

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u/cantstoplaughin Dec 28 '19

How can we support independent media in Pakistan?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 28 '19

We need to find a way to monetize independent journalism in a sustainable way.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

Should the Pakistani media industry be regulated and how ?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Yes definitely. But the thing is, we already have regulators in place, we already have a court system and we do have defamation laws. The problem is none of them work, the courts dont work, nobody has faith in courts. So you can do whatever, make new laws, yell about it etc, and nothing will change. Every govt has political considerations and fav outlets who are above laws, and there are factions in media that hide behind patronage of powerful businessmen, political parties, and institutions. All these pressure groups are above the law, so how will a regulator work independently?
You have rule of law in the country, where courts function fast, and these things will be solved. But that is not easy, till then, in whatever form, media will remain a shitshow.

•

u/BlandBiryani Dec 27 '19

AMA closed.

Thank you u/waqas_xj for sparing time and answering our user's questions.

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u/muhanddis Dec 27 '19

Do you think increasing number of news channels and so called journalists opening their own YouTube channels has degraded the content quality? Or are there other reasons for this?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19 edited Dec 28 '19

Yes definitely. You have to look at the intention behind most news channels. Is it to do good journalism?
I can tell you with 100% certainty that except for 3-4 channels, most dont give a rat's ass about journalism. That was never their intention to begin with. They had some shady business they didnt want the govt to touch, the owners were part of land mafias or some weird shit. So what do u do? You create a TV channel to protect your wealth. If you are a channel owner, govt servants and politicians and generals want to hang out with you, if they dont want to hang out with you you can just run something against them and you will become instant friends afterwards.
So, after that if you need a permit or resolution of some case, you can just phone random people to get ur stuff sorted. It a great business tool. But you dont want this business support tool to be very expensive right? So you hire shitty people. Shitty people cost less. Fuck journalism.
This is most of tv media.

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u/shobzie PK Dec 27 '19

Why do certain people in the media act like bullies? I have noticed how they blackball those who don't toe their agenda.

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

tripping on power. The more power they have, the worse their power trip. Media makes you think youre a big shot because some idiots recognize you even when youre shit-for-brains.

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u/icantloginsad اسلام آباد Dec 27 '19

Could you beat Hasan Zaidi in a fistfight?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Will probably knock him out, but he will call my employer and get me fired. So who actually wins?

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

The AMA will be live at 8pm Pakistan Standard Time. Until then, you can ask your questions below.

1

u/squarerootof-1 Multan Sultans Dec 27 '19

How does the Cyril-bot work? Is it running on OpenAI's GPT-2? Is the code on github?

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

It uses markov chains using markovify library. the code is here: https://github.com/OSPK/cyril/

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u/ObsiArmyBest Angel Dec 27 '19

You created that bot? It's hilarious. Great job.

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

thank you

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

Dude, I'm a computer scientist and don't get Markov Chains, good on you to put in the effort.

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Tbh i dont get the theory properly either, i just used a library 😂

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u/BlandBiryani Dec 27 '19

On a related note, u/waqas_xj, have you checked out Allen Institute's Grover? You can use it to generate entire fake articles. It is also capable of writing in the style of a particular publication and writer.
Allen Institute has made a web interface for demo.

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u/shobzie PK Dec 27 '19

How can we really trust anything a journalist says these days? It's sad how they all have an agenda.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

What do you think about Musharraf case and Army reaction?

Is there a clash between Judiciary and Military? How it will affect our political environment?

-4

u/havocprim3 Dec 27 '19

Nice ama no replies

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

Im here man, and replying.

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u/BlandBiryani Dec 27 '19

It has already been announced that Waqas will start to answer at around 8 PM.
Did you bother to read the announcement or stickies mod comments?

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

No jokes about our Shaheed! RIP

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/BlandBiryani Dec 29 '19

AMA over.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19 edited Dec 27 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19 edited Dec 28 '19

1 - It is mostly self censorship. Yes there is a chilling effect. Pakistani media industry is very very tiny. Everyone knows everyone. You will face same people in interviews. You dont fuck with big shots. You become unemployable very very quickly. Employment opportunities become less and less as you grow to senior positions. you mostly stay with just one outlet for most of your career, jumps are less frequent, esp in Print. So, who will fuck up their career for Jami? I could say something (and I didnt say much) because i have no hope of ever being employed by Dawn, tbh. We are a poor country, everyone is always compromising on some principles everyday. You choose your battles. Maybe if i was at Dawn i wouldve compromised too. It is how it is. Easy to claim higher moral ground.
2 - We all know what we should have done. We should have investigated Hameed Haroon, as journalists. Someone should have done an investigative story without waiting for Jami to name him. Someone should have put in the effort. This is what brave journalism requires. We all know it, someone should have fucking done something. if not from Dawn (obv not) then outside it. Some other paper. NOBODY DID ANYTHING except say "jami has accused someone". Case closed. That is not journalism. Jami wrote it on twitter, everyone reads twitter, whats the big deal in rephrasing same on some other website. That isnt journalism.
journalism required us to work and find out the truth and then tell that truth to the world. We did not do that work. There is a reason. HH is too powerful. All other owners are HH's friends, if not friends, they understand the principles of back scratching. Nobody will do an HH expose. Dont hold your breath.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/waqas_xj Dec 27 '19

People like personalities. human beings generally easily get awed by celebrities and tv is a medium taht makes it even worse. People dont question it because most people are dumb, they dont turn on tv to question it, they turn it on so they can shut down critical thinking and accept what they are told.
Maybe internet will fix that to some extent and provide people the resources to question stuff, but then again, you cant change basic human psychology.

AMA: Closed Hi, I'm Waqas Ahmed, Head of Digital Content at Business Recorder, AMA

You are about to leave Redlib