Weekly Pakistani publication turns 10; the story one dedicated man

By Karolina Kowalska, Nowy Dziennik/Polish Daily News, March 30, 2003.

When I started Pakistan Post, I had $30 in my pocket, unpaid bills and will power. Ten years later, I can say that I succeeded.

Pakistan Post is an Urdu-language weekly newspaper distributed for free. Every week, 25, 000 copies reach Pakistani communities across the United States; another 50,000 copies are published in Canada. The paper draws its revenue from advertising. Readers in Miami, Atlanta, Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa don’t have to pay a cent.

The marketing and publishing success of Pakistan Post is the masterpiece of one man— Mahammad Farooqi.

I survived 10 years

For Mahammad Farooqi, the paper is his life. The rhythm of publishing has choreographed his life for the last 10 years. He works 18 hour days, 7 days-a-week. When he leaves his house on Monday at 8:30 a.m., his wife and kids know that they won’t see him until Wednesday evening. In that time, he delivers the papers to 80 distribution points in a 200 mile radius, meets with the Canadian editors and collects advertisements. He also edits articles he receives from correspondents in the United States and Pakistan. And, he writes.

How does he do it all? “That’s what everyone ask,”’ Farooqi smiles. “Even my friends and relatives question this. This is when I tell them that it’s nothing compared to the beginnings of Pakistan Post when I had $30 in my pocket, unpaid bills and I could not even afford to buy diapers for my daughter. The only things at my disposal were a strong will, hard work and a heart. But if there is one thing that I believe in, it’s that if you aspire to something and decide to realize your goal, you will certainly succeed. They gave me a few weeks, months at the most. I remained on the market for 10 years.”

Farooqi, who is of Pakistani origin, decided to operate independently. His paper is free of the constraints of financial and legislative institutions in Pakistan, as well as in the United States.

“Their [Pakistan Post’s] financial independence allows them to have objectivity. They don’t omit information; they don’t suck up to anyone—even the advertisers. They are trustworthy,” says Ahmed, a clerk in one of the newsstands on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. “It’s really not about money.”

Free – But how?

Farooqi admits that he would not have made it without the help of his friends. They supported him as much as they were able, usually with small sums of money. Chalid Ali gave the publication its first computer, valued at $600—20 times the amount of money at Farooqi’s disposal.

The first publishing office was fraction of the size of his current one. “Despite this, we fit three desks, two computers and three editors in there, two of whom were habitual smokers. We wrote articles chain-smoking furiously. The smoke would get so dense, we couldn’t see each other,” remembers Farooqi. “After a year-and-a-half, we moved several streets over, to an office three times bigger.”

They have been in their Jamaica, Queens-based office for five years. It is spacious and the editor-in-chief Farooqi finally has his own office.

Even to him, the start-up memories seem incredible. He grabs his head: “Don’t even remind me of those times. Even three years into it, I never knew if the paper I was working on would make it to the stands. Often, I couldn’t pay the printers, and printers are not a particularly charitable bunch.”

Given the modest funds, Farooqi had to ensure distribution on his own.

“I couldn’t afford to hire distributors, and so I distributed everything myself. Together with my wife and youngest daughter, we set off for Florida in our van. We made the same journey week after week, despite the weather. We couldn’t latch on to another publication’s distribution, because no other ethnic paper was publishing on such a large scale. We were the precursors. We started a new tradition.”

Even though free ethnic papers are more common nowadays, most still charge a fee. Given the statistics, it is remarkable that Pakistan Post is able not only to support itself, but also a 13 person work force.

“We manage, and we don’t even charge astronomical prices for the ads,” Farooqi says. “I suspect that our prices are actually among the lowest in the American market.”

Pakistan Post is one of a very few publications in the Urdu language and given its 25,000 copies per week production scale, it is theoretically read by every tenth Pakistani legally staying in the United States. According to the U.S. Census 2000, there are currently 204,309 Pakistanis living in America. At least as many, if not more, are undocumented immigrants.

We prefer no re-prints

Mahammad Farooqi knew he wanted to put out a paper that was professional, free of influences and filled with its own editorial content.

“We rarely re-print articles. Obviously, if the New York Times has an article on the subject of Pakistan, we’ll translate it into Urdu and place in the issue. But generally, the paper is 99.9 percent our own editorial output,” the editor-in-chief explains. “We mainly print the reports of our correspondents from Pakistan and all over the United States. Great journalistic personalities from Pakistan and correspondents for other papers in Pakistan write for us.”

These journalists’ reports written for the Pakistan Post are more daring than their usual articles written in their homeland, due to the lack of political censorship.

“We are not afraid to write the truth. If certain legislative proceedings are wrong and detrimental to Pakistani citizens, we will write about it. This doesn’t mean that we make a point of routinely taking a stand against the Pakistan government. We simply write the truth. We relate the news and inform our readers. We leave them to form their own opinions. This is what sets us apart form the papers published in Pakistan,” Farooqi says. “An easy example: If the Pakistani media reports, “A bus accident occurred. Thirteen people were killed and two injured,” our paper would add why such accident occurred and whose fault it was.”

The argument with Musharraf

Also different is the manner of reporting on the subject of the Pakistani leader, General Pervez Musharraf.

“I never write about him as a president, I don’t use that title. To me, he’s a general,” says Farooqi. In November, during a United Nations conference, he got into an argument with the general and left the room. Luckily, he did not meet the same fate of another journalist, who was beaten for his answers regarding the press.

He supports Musharraf on one issue: his cooperation with the United States during the war in Afghanistan.

The 25,000 copies distributed weekly in the United States disappear like fresh bagels. Pakistanis devour the articles in their own Urdu language. They know that Pakistan Post is a reliable source for information about their country, which is often trivialized by the American press. They react to everything they see in the paper. They phone and write e-mails. Less often they write letters, although there is one gentleman in Maryland who causes the editor’s weekly headache with his opinions written in mile-long, neat rows of Urdu characters.

The Pakistani government follows the Pakistan Post with equal diligence. “They obtain copies through channels known only to them. The have informers. They collect issues.” Farooqi realizes that he’s being watched. Despite this, he’s not afraid to continue publishing. Before Pakistan Post, he published a magazine, Kainaa, and, after that, Awaz. In 1993, he launched Pakistan Post. All were similar in format.

Politics and entertainment

Although the majority of articles in Pakistan Post deal with Pakistani legislation and the political situation in both Pakistan and the United States, there is no lack of reporting on local issues, economy, entertainment, sports, music and even fashion. The weekly paper is for everyone about everything.

The offices of Pakistan Post are among the very few whose graphic design department is several hundred miles away. Ever since the production moved to the Toronto offices, the articles are being sent not to the computer in the next room, but to the Canada

“The paper is put together and printed in Canada due to [special registration] problems [in the United States]. The editors and production workers all moved to Toronto. Today, there are nine people in Canada and only four in New York—I, my wife and two employees who take care of advertisements and distributions.”

In July of this year, Pakistan Post turns 10. Farooqi already knows that there will be no big bash.

“The market situation is grim, so we cannot afford big celebrations. Also, the timing is all wrong. People are apprehensive and not in a celebratory mood. Everyone is nervous about the war. We are scared as Pakistani and as American residents. No one can tell what tomorrow will bring,” he says in deep thought.

“Everything changed after 9-11. Before the attacks, I could get into a disagreement with anyone about anything. It was a matter-of-fact thing and no one got offended. Now, entering any kind of conflict, I enter it as a Muslim. Regardless of the subject matter of the conversation, the disagreeing party can walk away, thinking to themselves, “See, this guy is a Muslim, he probably supports Osama.” No one seems to believe me that that’s not the case. Nowadays, it’s very easy to label a Muslim a terrorist. And such a label could easily land one in jail.”

The dream of democracy

America was his Utopian dream:

“When I first came here, I thought that America would be the last stop in my journey to find democracy, that no one will sabotage me here, that I would be able to express my thoughts freely. As it turned out, that’s not the case. And I must resign myself to this fact. For others, who, like me, dreamt of total democracy and did not find it in America, there is no other place to go.”

He’s disappointed by the war and the way the authorities have treated Muslims since the events of 9-11.

“After all, 98 percent of them came here in search of a better life. Like all immigrants, they wanted to earn money and return to their homeland. They work hard to earn a decent living. Crime statistics among the Pakistani population remains low—the majority of crimes committed are immigration issues. Three million Mexicans commit the same crimes, yet it is the Pakistani who is considered the criminal. Why? Because we are a Muslim country. And we support the United States, even providing logistic bases. The United States has a right to go after undocumented immigrants and prosecute them. But why concentrate on just one ethnic group?”

Despite this, Farooqi believes that things are getting better.

“Americans reacted very calmly to 9-11. It’s a highly educated generation. In my country, no one would have even attempted to control themselves. There would be no attempt at self control. There would be riots. Although the media blamed Muslims, the fact that Americans did not turn to persecute them demonstrates their control and stability. I am certain that if in Pakistan Christians were blamed for the attacks, Pakistanis would have killed them. We are not a country as patient as America. And here, just one Pakistani was killed.”

The first photo

Mohhamad Farooqi has been a journalist since he was 18 years old. A graduate of a chemistry program, he has worked for the press all his adult life. He was one of the most distinguished journalists in Pakistan. In 1984, he took a position at a weekly magazine Nawiwakat, and and later at a daily paper Maszrik (The East in Urdu). Even then, he was unafraid to write bold political articles. He arrived in the United States in 1989. A year later he settled here for good. He always knew he would launch the first Pakistani newspaper in the United States.

“I wasn’t even attempting to find employment in the American press. I write in Urdu. I was not confident to publish in English. And American newspapers do not have an Urdu section,” he winks.

His photograph for Nowy Dziennik (Polish Daily News) is his first publicized image. In his opinion, journalists are craftsmen, and should not elbow their way to the pedestal.