Reports of Herald's likely closure cause a stir

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published 7 years ago

ISLAMABAD: A tweet by a journalist claiming closing down of monthly magazine Herald created a stir Friday.

Naimat Khan, joint secretary of Karachi Press Club made the claim.

Curtain is falling on the most respected English language magazine of Pakistan. Employees of monthly Herald h ۔ ave been told that issue of January 2019 will be the last issue of 50 years' old magazine.

— Naimat Khan (@NKMalazai) November 16, 2018

The first one to react was Talat Aslam, Senior Editor of The News. He hoped the news was false. “I fervently hope this is not true. Herald is an institution. At a personal level, Herald is where I spent more than a decade of my formative years in the profession and learnt everything I know about journalism. Very sad news.”

However, as a number of leading journalists expressed shock and sadness over the news, Naimat Khan came up with another tweet, in which he seemed to contradict the earlier tweet. This second tweet about the magazine was posted after Naimat spoke to Muhammad Badar Alam, Editor of Herald.

Naimat tweeted to inform: “Spoke to Badar Sb & he told: “We are hearing these reports/rumors like all others. There is no official notification about it — not at least so far. So, I will not be able to deny or confirm these reports/rumors before I have an official word from the management."

@AliaChughtai Spoke to Badar Sb & he told: “We are hearing these reports/rumors like all others. There is no official notification about it — not at least so far. So, I will not be able to deny or confirm these reports/rumors before I have an official word from the management."

— Naimat Khan (@NKMalazai) November 16, 2018

This tweet quoting the magazine's editor should have put to rest any fears about the magazine’s closure. It did not.

Leading journalists continued to express their sadness, remembering the magazine as an institution.

Mazhar Abbas said: “This is the most terrible news not only for those who once remained associated with it but also for its readers. It produced editors like late Razia Bhatti. Sad news.”

For Abbas Nasir former editor of Dawn, Herald is the place “where some of us got an opportunity to do our best professional work under the ablest of editors.”

Journalist Omar Quraishi talked about the plans to turn Herald into a weekly. “I know they always wanted Herald to be a weekly - a monthly in this day and age of instant round-the-clock news is a bit of an anachronism.”

He hoped the management would convert the magazine “into a digital only publication where things can be kept current.”

Poet and journalist Fazil Jamili said Dawn group has a track record of closing down publications in the past. “Unfortunate state of affairs of Pakistan media industry. Dawn group has the track record of closing publications like Urdu daily Hurriyat, Watan Gujrati and a tabloid The Star in the past. We as the media workers couldn't do anything but to witness their unnatural death.”