Hanan Habibzai

The Times Remembers the Dasht-e-Leili Massacre By Prof. Edward Herman I t is always interesting and enlightening to see the New York Times picking up a story belatedly and tracing through the reasons for its early neglect and later resuscitation. This often fits the Orwellian Big Brother principle of using a story only when it is politically helpful and suppressing it when it is inconvenient—forgetting, "and then, when it become necessary again [drawing] it back from oblivion" ( 1984 ). My favorite case was the failure of the New York Times to mention the Salvadoran army death list of 138 left-wing and liberal politicians back in 1982, when the United States was supporting a "demonstration election" there and publicizing the death list would suggest unfavorable electoral conditions, but then mentioning that list in 1989 when the left was tentatively entering an election and the paper was anxious to put that election in a good light, contrasting it with t...

BBC commitment to impartiality questioned in its coverage of Afghanistan By Hanan Habibzai This article analysis the work of three media organizations relating to their coverage of the same event in Afghanistan. On 10 th February 2011 Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman from the Afghan National Security Directorate, gave a press conference to the world’s media claiming the government had arrested two men suspected of carrying out a suicide bombing in Kabul that killed eight people. The BBC Pashto Service report of the conference, compared to coverage of the same event by the USA’s Washington Post and an Afghan online news agency Pajhwok calls into question the BBC’s impartiality when reporting on Afghan affairs. The BBC is renowned for its relatively strong commitment to impartial, professional journalism focused on truth in the public interest. ‘‘Impartiality lies at the heart of public service and is the core of the BBC’s commitment to its audiences. It applies to all...

Pashto andPashtuns In the Light of Linguistic Perspective By Prof.Dr.M.A. Zyar Pashto is the language of Pashtuns. Pashtuns (Afghans) are the biggest majority ethno-linguistic tribe and the most long living residents of Afghanistan. The name of the country is links with the name of largest majority, the Pashtuns. From the point of view of history and geography Pashtuns belong to northeastern areas like Pamir and Balkh . The grandpas of Pashtuns were named as Sakas , Kasyan and Sakan, and the Pashto itself were the grandson of Saki language. Other current Saki languages belong to Saka origins like: Osety (Caucasia) and 12 or 13 other Pamiri languages are considered close sisters. Sakas are considered the fifth Aryanian origin along with, Awesta-speaking Zartostrians , Partians , Madians and Parsians , which created big empires many centuries before Christ in the Middle East, Caucasia, to northern west India and Kashmir, and defended its main residential te...

The complexity of newsgathering in Afghanistan  By Hanan Habibzai INTRODUCTION The local communication is characterised by restricted media culture which involves ethnic and sectarian ideologies. In an environment where decades of conflicts destroyed everything, thinking style is consequently exaggerated one way or another. Therefore, the function of communication system and resources shape the audiences opinions toward particular direction. The ‘‘journalists are licensed agents of symbolic power – authorised by their status as employees of news organisations to tell the stories through which we make sense of our society’’ (Meikle & Redden 2011:10). An Editorial policy requires, and the audiences should be in the heart of this guiding principle. Although Pajhwok has a specific written editorial guideline, but mostly news gathering process in Afghanistan comes through oral and unwritten editorial management. The news gathering methods are often borrowed from ...