There are many kinds of journalists out there – what kind are you?

Some are proper professional journalists who have gone through the ropes, starting from the traditional newsroom as a desk or sub-editor or a reporter, and rising through the ranks to senior sub or senior reporter, and eventually to editor.

When I started off in journalism in the mid-1990s, there was no scope for being a journalist unless you wanted to join the state-run, dull and drab PTV or – equally dull and drab – Radio Pakistan. In any case, both these organisations usually take in those who have passed the civil services exam and join them through the information group.

There was – and remains – also the Associated Press of Pakistan, or APP, which is the official government news agency. Its main task has always been to report on the daily events and meetings of the president, the prime minister, the ministers of the federal cabinet, the armed forces chiefs, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the high courts, and so on. Basically, it was also a boring job – and much of it went against the basic grain of being a journalist, which often means being a watchdog of the government and its policies and actions, and of speaking truth to power.

This is the kind........

© The Friday Times