Imran Khan, India and courts: The news makers in Pakistan in 2019

News consumption forms an integral part of the everyday routine for ordinary citizens in Pakistan. Be it the written word, the gossip heard, or the theater of the absurd, nothing seems to escape the attention of the hundreds of millions of Pakistanis who zealously consume news via newspapers, radio, television, and increasingly so, the internet. 

For a country consistently ranked in the bottom-tier of press freedom rankings and considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, it seems like something does not quite add up here. In the absence of a free press, and amid constant threats to media workers, what kind of news are the people of Pakistan consuming every day?

To answer this question, it is perhaps important to briefly consider the media landscape of the country. Pakistan has come a long way from the era of state-owned newspapers, radio, and television channels. The dawn of the previous decade ushered in the age of private television channels, and the beginning of this decade saw the rise of digital news networks. 

As internet penetration increases, electronic devices become cheaper, and the youth bulge enters the workforce, television seems to be rapidly conceding space to digital as the go-to medium for news consumption. If it has become easy to muzzle print and broadcast mediums, the set of tools needed to fully subjugate the digital realm are a little harder to get by.

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Determining the news makers for 2019

As the year comes to an end, and with it, the decade, it is perhaps worth exploring the topics that dominated the headlines in Pakistan over the past twelve months. The most-read news stories on the Geo English website, and the front-page headlines of The News, are a useful measure of the news consumption habits of Pakistanis. 

In the following paragraphs, top news data has been grouped into themes such as politics, security, judiciary, social development and international affairs. For each theme, certain pre-determined keywords relevant to the topic have been selected and character-specific searches carried out in most-read stories on the Geo English website and front-page stories of The News paper for 2019. 

By comparing the trends in keywords of top headlines from sister news brands the past twelve months, one can gauge exactly where the interests of the news consumers lie, as determined by the news team. Editors are responsible for shaping the headlines and sharing them. Have they succeeded in empowering citizens by magnifying their voices? Let us take a look.

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Politics: Major parties and top leaders

Political developments in the domestic sphere remained a key area of interest for people across the country in 2019. According to data from most read stories on the Geo English website and the front-page of The News paper, political parties were constantly featured on both platforms.

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) garnered the most attention, compared to other political groups, getting top coverage in print and proving popular among readers on the internet as well. Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) was second most popular in top headlines.  

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) came in at third place, with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam - Fazl (JUI-F), Jamat-e-Islami, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Balochistan National Party (BNP), among others, also managing to get top coverage on both print and digital. 

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In tandem with the coverage afforded to political parties, the leaders of these groups also command mass attention on print and digital media. 2019 was no exception, with Prime Minister Imran Khan (identified in the data as Imran Khan, PM Imran and PM Khan), from the PTI, emerging as the most popular political leader overall on web and in print. 

PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif (identified in the data as Nawaz Sharif and Nawaz) followed the premier as the second-most popular leader, according to top headlines, with PPP chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari (identified as Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto and Bilawal) coming in at third place. 

JUI-F head Maulana Fazlur Rehman (identified in the data as Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Fazlur Rehman), and JI bigwig Sirajul Haq, were also mentioned in some of the top stories. In addition to the major political leaders, other names, like ANP chief Asfandyar Wali, BNP President Akhtar Mengal, also featured in top headlines over the course of the year.

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Security: Internal and external

A collective glance at all the keywords associated with top headlines on Geo English and The News provides interesting insights into the topics most widely read over the course of the year. India emerges as the most-read topic across both platforms, with PM Imran and stories related to the courts following close behind.

Developments in the United States and United Kingdom also make it to the combined top ten-list of most-read stories on web and in print. Chief of Army Staff and Director General ISPR make the cut as well, along with the PTI and NAB. 

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'Print has a hierarchy of importance'

Editor of The News, Talat Aslam, when asked to comment on the top headliners driving news consumption in Pakistan, said that a self-fulfilling loop had been initiated wherein the social media picked up a story, the electronic media highlighted it, before the print took it. 

"But in the print media there is still a hierarchy of importance. It's rare to see popular social media stories on celebrities etc on the front page of serious papers here. It's usually politics, courts, foreign policy issues," he said, adding that the target audience for web and print was different. 

Responding to a question about the steps print media could take to forge a separate identity in the age of digital, Aslam remarked that the print needed to focus on doing more investigative and in-depth journalism and transition to tackling topics like health, climate and education. 

"Reading patterns have definitely changed. More and more people are getting their news on the social media, smart phones. This exposes them to a lot of unedited propaganda and fake news," he noted, adding that, "the next two years will determine whether print sinks or swims". 

'Anything that engages readers is a priority on digital'

Senior Digital Editor at Geo and The News, Fazil Jamili, when asked to comment on the drivers of news consumption, said that anything that engaged readers was on his list of priorities. "When we talk about digital it means we have to think and act digitally," he said. 

"Technology is the main landscape for digital identification. You can engage the readers by doing multimedia stories/videos/blogs/features and interactive pieces, and then invite comments from the readers without any constraints of space," he added. 

Asked to comment on the reading patterns of the Pakistanis, Jamili said that the way people consumed content was changing. "I think the reading habits and patterns of people have been changed with time, especially in the digital era. Readers now prefer brief snippets than detailed tomes," he noted. 

"You don’t need to keep hard copies of newspapers or books. E-papers, e-books and social media platforms are the new reading patterns," he remarked, adding that as digital editor, he is always interested in exploring new ways of engaging readers on the internet. 

"Furthermore, on digital [platforms] data can be visualised in a much better way, while referencing is also much efficient — both of which enrich stories," he added.