Veteran journalists and media critics applauded the services of Mir Khalil Ur Rehman for Pakistani journalism in a seminar held under aegis of Hameed Nizami Memorial Society (HNMS) on Tuesday.
The speakers of the session traced back the historical journey of Mir Khalil and his newspaper Jang.
Veteran journalist and columnist Mujeeb Ur Rehman Shami paid tribute to Mir Khalil, saying that he was Shah Jahan who gave Pakistani journalism its Taj Mahal by making Jang an unbeatable newspaper in the country. He said Mir Khalil and Hameed Nizami were two newspaper owners who were professionals. He discussed many trends of Pakistani journalism which Mir Khalil introduced to the country for the first time. Jang started offset printing, trend of using services of AP, AFP, Reuters etc. in Urdu journalism, and many other innovations, he said. Discussing the editorials of Jang, he said, for Mir Khalil, editorial pages came second to news pages. He collected top writers and intellectuals for the opinion pages of his paper, Mujeeb said.
Intellectual and media critic Prof Mehdi Hassan analyzed the journalism of Mir Khalil and said he made Jang the most circulated newspaper of the country. He described the brief history of the newspaper and his encounters with Mir Khalil. However he stated that Jang did not accommodate the views of all schools of thought.
My articles were not published in Jang which I had written at the request of the paper’s administration, he said. He lauded HNMS for setting a new trend of appreciating the good works of competitors.
Editor Pakistan Today Arif Nizami said he had family terms with Mir Khalil and he was really a man of deeds who proved himself in journalism. He said once in Mir’s days Jang had an independent policy which now had shifted to Anti-Federal Government. Analyst and Program Anchor Suhail Warraich speaking at the seminar said that Mir Khalil had always safeguarded the human resource of his organization and published the views of all schools of thought.
