Reading newspapers in today’s Pakistan is an ordeal. All you get to read is news about bombings, acts of terrorism and gang rapes which is traumatic at best. But what gets you even more nauseous is reporting done in bad taste and almost non existing editing. The News International was never a great newspaper to begin with, but of late, their standards have reached a new low.
Apart from printing bat shit crazy assed & and downright offensive opinion pieces by Dr A. Q. Khan, they have previously published news about Singer Humaira Arshad’s visit to Punjab’s CM House and how a political party will hold a meeting on September 33 – yes you read it right – September 33. The funny thing is that this news item was published back in September but no one bothered to correct it.
Today’s 'The News' was no exception. A report published about the launch of Namal Knowledge City by PTI Chief Imran Khan described his house as a citadel (I think it was the new word that particular reporter recently learned). Among other things, reporter was at pains to point out that Imran Khan did not use the word former while talking about his ex wife and how people gossiped about it.
“Imran Khan revealed that his wife had declined to send his children to the function for security reasons. The guests whispered when he did not use the word ‘former’ while referring to his wife.”While the whole world, his wife and his assorted animals know that the total amount of aid that would come to Pakistan through the now infamous Kerry Lugar Bill is $7.5 billion, The news editors got a bit carried away and decided to replace the decimal between 7 & 5 with a zero making the amount a whopping $705 billion. I just hope that American tax payers are willing to shell out that kind of money.
The bat shit crazy assed QUOTE OF THE DAY came from former CM of NWFP Mohammed Akram Durrani who says that with assistance in form of Kerry Lugar Bill – or KLB as it is affectionately termed by the local media – the United States is trying to start a civil war in Pakistan by the year 2010. What the fuck does he mean by 2010? What are we doing right now? I thought we are already in a war like situation where 30,000 troops are carrying a massive operation in the North West Border region
Following it closely is the other super crazy quote came from former information minister Muhammed Ali Durrani who believes that “the tabling of the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in parliament was a vicious attempt to divert the attention of the nation from the ‘anti-Pakistan’ Kerry-Lugar Bill (KLB) and this attempt would be foiled by the vigilant media and political parties.” I just hope to God that he was not referring to his own party – PML Q – as one of those vigilant parties.
PS: I actually read the newspaper while waiting at the dentist’s. So miffed I was with The News that after I came back, I tracked all the news that I remembered and linked it to this post. Reading it was definitely more painful than scaling, really.
PPS: If possible, the epaper header has even more atrocious English.
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