A READER from Lahore criticised a story about the arrest of a prayer leader and wondered about the “importance given by the paper” in our Lahore edition of Jan 10. He said the four columns of space on the lower half of the Metro’s front page were “shocking”. The reader then questioned Dawn’s “objective”.

I looked up the page and found that the story was given apt display considering the “importance” given to other news items, and there were constraints for the sub making the page. For instance, besides the space occupied by the logo, there was a 16-centrimetre-deep ad running across the page at the bottom. Since the ad was in colour, it had to be balanced, and this was done by putting a four-column 14-cm-deep picture on the top half.

Let us note that page-making has to conform to certain rules, the most important rule being that every page must be like the previous day’s page but it must be different. To repeat, it must look like any Dawn page but it must be different.

The night editor or his stand-in didn’t — quite rightly — place the arrest story on the first half of page; instead, they made some other news item the lead story and placed it beneath the picture. The story was about an anti-measles drive, it had 10 paragraphs, occupied eight centimtres and had a headline in 46 points in Times New Roman. The arrest story, however, had six paragraphs, was six centimetres in depth, and the headline was in 24 point TNR.

Editorials should hammer home the point with conviction.

What would catch the reader’s eye on the page would be the two-single column stories in top positions in columns one and eight (actually, column six because of the ‘bastardisation’ of column width). The top story in column six and the one beneath had a colour screen, and that more or less ‘balanced’ the page. On the whole the night editor had his sights right.

As for the “objective”, frankly, Dawn is not in the “objective” business. The reader’s advice that it was a “one-column” story meant for inside pages seems to ignore the fact that the news was about Lahore, and the arrest of a prayer leader in these times merits due display for Lahore readers of Dawn Metro. In Dawn’s other editions it appeared as single column inside.

Editorial language

A reader from Lahore complained that the language of Dawn editorials is “convoluted”, sentences are long, and “the style is not journalistic”. All this, he says, “makes them difficult to understand,” and he wants us to give up “Dr Samuel Johnson’s style”.

Editorial writing is the highest form of newspaper writing, and only decades of journalistic experience and a sound academic background entitle a newsperson to write a leader for his paper. Dawn’s editorial writers are among Pakistan’s best, they have decades of experience in editorial writing, and many of them have worked for foreign entities. That is the reason why, even though we do get criticism for our views, we have never come across criticism about Dawn editorials’ diction.

As a rule, the basic principle in newspaper writing is that sentences should be small and language simple. But editorial writing is a different genre, for the principles that apply to news reporting do not hold good for editorials. Even for articles on such subjects as law and constitution, science and technology, showbiz, fashion, economy, etc. specialised language and jargon are unavoidable. Here the level has to be different. News stories must tell facts and cram them; editorials must hammer home the point with conviction and logic, which doesn’t mean that the language should be ‘convoluted’. I wish the reader had given some examples of ‘convoluted’ sentences.

‘Accelerated trend’

A social activist pointed to a half-page ad on child marriage (Feb 3) and said it had eight photographs — four of one family, one of the chief minister, two of the minister and one of the secretary, Department of Women Development. He asked, “Is it appropriate and ethical for you to carry ads that are loaded with personal photographs and paid out of the taxpayers’ money?” He implied that publishing that ad amounted to supporting “this accelerating trend of personal publicity at state expense”.

The reader’s point is well taken, but this is a dilemma for all newspapers, for this “accelerating trend” has been going on for decades, and no federal or provincial government misses an opportunity to make propaganda capital out of “achievements” — whether on the launching and completion of development projects, or, as in this case, the enactment of an otherwise progressive law. Basically, our political leaders should answer the criticism.

Second biggest?

A reader said the Tableeghi gathering at Tongi, Bangladesh, was not the second biggest after Haj (as claimed by news agency AFP) and that the honour belonged to Arbaeen in Karbala.

The writer is Dawn’s Readers’ Editor

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2015

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