“The most powerful teacher on the planet is media,” so said Gary E Knell, President and CEO of the National Geographic Society, in the December 2014 issue of the National Geographic magazine. “In fact, I believe journalism and storytelling are education,” he continues as he explains how his experience in the field of teaching has helped him polish his journalistic skills.

We see media shaping our minds and affecting our lifestyles but we don’t usually realise the pivotal role it plays in developing our oral and written language skills. Very often, the regular reader of a particular magazine adopts the same writing style as that magazine’s -- in an unconscious way in fact, without being aware of it.

Lahore has been the hub of literary activities not only during the Mughal period but also under the British administration. The first English language newspaper of the city, The Lahore Chronicle, was launched from Naulakha, then a suburb of 19th century Lahore. Munshi Muhammad Azim, father of civil servant and historian Syed Muhammad Latif, started publishing it in 1849 -- the same year when the British formally took over Punjab. However, The Lahore Chronicle could not survive for a long time and was sold to another newspaper, Indian Public Opinion, which finally merged into the Civil & Military Gazette.

This newspaper successfully survived the many different political changes in the subcontinent, the major being the transfer of power from the British to the local governments.

This brief history of the existence of English press in Pakistan gives an insight into the powerful role it has played in our socio-political fabric ever since its inception. Other than the coverage of political issues (which is the dominant feature of any newspaper) there are areas of interest which a quality newspaper offers to its readers: culture, sports and literature. And so did these newspapers in the English language.

There is a long list of notable authors and scholars who have been associated with the English newspapers of Lahore. In the pre-partition Lahore, Rudyard Kipling was the first man of letters who combined journalism with literature by writing short stories in the Civil & Military Gazette where he worked as an assistant editor from 1882 to 1887. Although a work of literature can never be regarded as a direct documentation of history, the literature of every age is bound to reflect the socio-political issues of that time. The short stories of Kipling were mostly about the British soldiers in India.

In Kipling’s own words, “If history were told in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” A fact which our columnists should know while writing long, boring narratives to describe a historical event.

Literature and literary articles have always been a regular feature of all newspapers of English. An amazing aspect of these literary articles is that they are not only on English literature but on our native languages like Urdu and Punjabi as well. Along with the articles of Kamila Shamsie and Asif Farrukhi, we get to see Intizar Hussain’s highly scholarly articles that cover almost everything related to Urdu literature. Similarly, Shafqat Tanveer Mirza’s name will always be remembered for his valuable contributions to the Punjabi literature and history through his columns in English.

Apart from the contributions of these well-known writers, we see literary columns and book reviews by some lesser- known or even novice contributors on a regular basis in almost all of our English newspapers. Although the standard of these articles differs from one paper to another and only a few can be regarded as valuable contributions towards literature, their very existence in these newspapers proves that the English press is still committed to quench the thirst of its scholarly readers who read newspapers for reasons other than politics and current affairs.

It is a fact that the English press successfully established its readership in Pakistan after 1947 by appealing to its highly educated and scholarly class and undoubtedly literature has a great role to play in it.

In the education sector, newspapers are used as a teaching resource in the language and literature classes of our schools and colleges to achieve various learning objectives. Teachers select articles to be shown to their students as examples of good writing skills and balanced critical reviews/commentaries. Since article writing and report writing have become a part of some syllabuses, the importance of these has increased as teachers are always on a look for some well-written report or article by some professional journalist.

Mrs Atiya Shah, with her decades of experience in teaching English to students preparing for foreign qualifications, strongly recommends the use of newspapers in language classes. “Reading newspaper articles on diverse subjects helps my students understand how aspects of article-writing like headline, byline and lead sentences are applied. Besides, they learn how to carry out a point of view and organise ideas cohesively,” she comments.

Published in Dawn January 18th , 2015

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