Love you all- Sheikh Rashid
Sheikh Rashid has become “the first powerful popular personality on social media.”
Or at least that is what the front page of Express Urdu, Islamabad edition reported on October 17.
It doesn’t mean that he is the most followed person on social media or anything, that still belongs to singer and current-age Britney Spears, Katty Perry.
Unfortunately the small news item that follows does not do much to alleviate the confusion. The only number it cites is 100 million, saying that is the number of people that watch Sheikh Rashid’s ‘talk show.’
Putting aside the fact that the Awami League Chairman does not own or host a television programme, even though he does often appear in different shows as a guest, one wonders what exactly these ratings have to do with his social media presence.
The news report is, after all, saying he is “the first powerful popular personality on social media.” Whether this means he is the first powerful person to be popular on social media or the first person who is popular and powerful to join social media is unclear. But it does seem that it would have something to do with social media and not television, which is a completely different medium.
It gets even better when the rest of the news item simply goes on to say that “according to sources” the reason for Sheikh Rashid’s popularity is that he has for the first time decided to take an anti-government stance and has become popular for this reason.
But whatever the above combination p-words means or is meant to mean, it sure did make Sheikh Rashid happy. He tweeted the entire day, through is “powerful, popular” social media presence telling his fans he loved them all and basking in the glory.
Interestingly enough, or not so, the said news item came from the new agency ‘Online.’ And while this may not mean much to the general user, any sub-editor of any newspaper that has had to go through online stories will understand to some extent where this is coming from.
It also goes to show how important a cog the sub-editor is in a newspaper. And while such mistakes are possible and sillier things have gone to print, one wonders how in the world it managed to make its way onto the first page.