LAHORE: Friends and colleagues of journalist Atif Mateen, the former news editor of The News International and Daily Times, who passed away a couple of weeks back gathered at the Lahore Press Club to remember him and share their memories of him.
Veteran journalist Hussain Naqi, the former editor of The News, remembered Atif as a colleague and thorough journalist. He said when they launched The News from Lahore, it was decided that new young staff would be hired and 50pc of them would be women.
“We thought that young people would bring about freshness in journalism,” said Naqi, adding that Atif was among those young people hired by the newspaper. He said a couple of things were necessary for professional journalists, i.e. sincerity, integrity, basic information about the main topics and, these days, artificial intelligence.
Mayed Ali Syed said he had lost some very close journalist friends in the last few months, including Atif, Imran Sheikh and Kamal Azeem. He mentioned the good old days of the 1990s, late night meetings with Atif and some bike races they would indulge on the way back home in the wee hours.
Mubasher Bukhari revisited his friendship with Atif since the college days, their closeness after joining journalism almost at the same time, Atif’s participation in the press club politics and his knack for Lahori food.
Lahore Press Club President Arshad Ansari also remembered his relationship with Atif going back to college days. He said Atif was so involved in the press club politics for his friends that after shifting to Islamabad years back, he did not quit Lahore Press Club membership and would visit the city to cast his vote for him on the polling day every year.
Saadia Salahuddin read out Kamila Hayat’s message. Remembering Atif, she spoke about his charismatic personality, saying that he would make friends with anyone in a jiffy.
Tahira Habib and Asim Hussain also spoke. The reference was moderated by Shafiq Awan.
Ahmer Rehman’s documentary was also played on the occasion. It had video messages from the friends and family members of Atif, including Arif Shamim, Asha’ar Rehman, Amir Mateen, Hamid Mir, Shaheen Sehbai, Arifa Noor, Najam Sethi, Nusrat Javed and Salim Bokhari.
Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2026