FORMER Dawn staffer Zubeida Mustafa has been awarded the International Women’s Media Foundation’s annual Lifetime Achievement Award. The IWMF’s announcement of this year’s winner came on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, which was observed recently.
The Lifetime Achievement Award “recognises a woman journalist who has a pioneering spirit and whose determination has paved the way for women in the news media”. Continue reading Award for former Dawn staffer
KARACHI, May 8: Friends and former colleagues paid rich tributes to senior journalist Zubeida Mustafa at a gathering held to celebrate the International Women’s Media Foundation’s (IWMF) annual Lifetime Achievement Award, which she was recently honoured with.
The programme organised by Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) on its premises on Tuesday included mention of the late journalist Razia Bhatti, who won the IWMF award for Courage in Journalism in 1994. Continue reading Zubeida Mustafa’s pen power praised
By Zubeida Mustafa
THE headline above is not mine. It is Murtaza Razvi’s, a colleague and friend from Dawn. I have borrowed it from the obituary he wrote of his mother, a writer, for Dawn’s Books & Authors when I was editing it.
Now, a decade later, it gives me a sense of sadness to use the same words for Murtaza whose life was cut short so brutally a week ago. It was January 2002. Murtaza’s mother Zaheena Tahir had passed away in Lahore. On his return after her funeral, he had resumed work. As I condoled with him, we talked about what mothers meant to their children even after they were no longer children. He told me about Zaheena Tahir and her writings. I was fascinated and asked him if he would like to write a piece on her literary work for me. He agreed. Continue reading Restless soul at rest
By Zubeida Mustafa
THERE is much to be cherished about the freedom that our media, especially the electronic media, has come to enjoy. The extent to which this freedom — it was called licence in earlier days — has gone is provoking a debate. This is a positive development because there are some media heavyweights who are now ready to admit that something is amiss.
When critics first started speaking up against the electronic media a few years ago, the issue that gave rise to controversy was the portrayal of violence. The Pakistan Medical Association raised this issue and invited some journalists for a dialogue to explain how scenes of violence impacted on the minds of young children. Continue reading Freedom or license for TV?
By Zubeida Mustafa
SO Ardeshir Cowasjee has decided to call it a day. He was one of Dawn’s longest-serving columnists and certainly the most feared because nothing could stop him from speaking out against what he perceived to be wrong. And in this calamity-stricken country of ours there was always much to provoke AC.
For over two decades he irritated and angered many of the high and mighty mandarins in their ivory towers Continue reading Will the lion roar again?