Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner Dawn
Group of Newspapers
Publisher Khawaja
Kaleem Ahmed
Editor Zaffar
Abbas
Founded 1941,
Delhi, British India
Headquarters Karachi, Pakistan
Official
website dawn.com
Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and widely read
English-language newspaper. One of the country's two largest English-language
dailies, it is the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, published by
Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns the Herald,magazine, the evening
paper The Star and Spider, an information technology magazine.
It was
founded in 1941 by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Delhi, India. The newspaper has offices in Karachi (Sindh), Lahore, and the federalcapital Islamabad, as well as representatives abroad.
As of 2004, it has a weekday circulation of over 138,000.
Early
history
Founded
by Mohammad Ali Jinnah on October 26, 1941 as a mouthpiece for the Muslim
League, Dawn originally a weekly publication, published in New Delhi. Jinnah summed up the paper's
purpose when he stated:
The Dawn
will mirror faithfully the views of Hindustan's Muslims and the All Hindustan
Muslim League in all its activities: economic, educational and social and more
particularly political, throughout the country fearlessly and independently and
while its policy will be, no doubt, mainly to advocate and champion the cause
of the Muslims and the policy and programme of the All Hindustan Muslim League
it will not neglect cause and welfare of the peoples of this sub continent
generally.
Dawn
became a daily newspaper in October 1942 under the leadership of its first
editor, Pothan Joseph. In 1944 Altaf Husain took over as the editor and brought
nationwide awareness of its daily circulation. After the creation of Pakistan, Hussain moved the newspaper to the
then federal capital Karachi. Under the instruction of the
owner, Mr. Jinnah, it became the official organ of the Pakistan Muslim League
in Delhi, and the sole voice of the Muslims
in English language reflecting and espousing the cause of the Muslims of India.
Hussain, as the journal's editor, galvanised the Muslims of India by his
editorials, which earned him wrath of the Congress Party as well as Lord
Mountbatten, the last Viceroy and Governor General of the British Raj.
In 1947,
senior Dawn staff led by Altaf Hussain set off for Karachi to launch a local edition starting August
15, 1947.
Under Yusuf Haroon a close confidant of Mr. Mohammad Ali Jinnah was given the
task to facilitate the publication. The offices of the newspaper were housed in
the small premises on the commercially busy and a crowded narrow street known
as South Napier Road, in premises belonging to Haroon.
He was at that time planning to bring out a newspaper called "The
Herald" but agreed to publish DAWN at his facilities, at the bidding of
Mr. Jinnah. The street where Dawn was first published is now known as Altaf Hussain Road. Dawn became a most outspoken
publication under the editorship of Hussain, who fiercely opposed the tyranny
and corrupt politicians and military dictators after the independence of Pakistan. In 1965, Hussain resigned as
editor when he accepted the invitation of President General Ayub Kh to join
his government as a cabinet minister.
Features
In
addition, Dawn regularly carries syndicated articles from western newspapers
like The Independent, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington
Post.
In Pakistan Dawn has in-paper magazines such as
Sci tech World, Young World Images etc.
On
Sundays, the weekend advertiser carries three sections namely "Ad
Buzz", Career
Staff
Regular
op-ed contributors include Ardeshir Cowasjee, Irfan Husain, Nadeem F. Paracha,
Muhammad Hanif, Asma Jahangir, Jawed Naqvi, I.A. Rehman, Ayesha Siddiqa, Humair
Ishtiaq, Anwar Syed, Cyril Almeida, Kamran Shafi, Huma Yusuf, Kunwar Idris,
Kuldip Nayar, Mahir Ali, Dr Tariq Rahman, Amb Tariq Fatemi,
Dr Riffat Hassan, Zubeida Mustafa, A.G. Noorani, Ahmad Faruqui, Zafar Masud,
Asghar Ali Engineer, Rafia Zakaria, Murtaza Razvi and Shada Islam.
Other
op-ed contributors include Pervez Hoodbhoy, Prof Mohammad Waseem, Nasser
Yousaf, Faizullah , Beena Sarwar, Bina Shah, Rakesh Mani, Asha'ar Rehman,
S.M. Naseem, Dr Ishrat Hussain, Yaqoob Khan Bangash, Nilofar Farrukh, Shahid M.
Amin, Anees Jillani, Brig Javed Hussain and Rina Saeed Khan
24-hour
news channel
After two
months of test transmissions, the publishing company behind the newspaper
launched Pakistan's first 24-hour news
channel, Dawn News, in July 2007. However, due to financial difficulties, the
broadcast language was switched from English to Urdu in May 2010.