2005 Annual Report - Ethnic Media Content Analysis

The Post is a free weekly newspaper based in Jamaica, in New York City's Borough of Queens, with a self-reported circulation of 40,000.¹ Though its audience is primarily the Pakistani population of the city, it reaches people in other large U.S. cities as well. It differs from standard English-language dailies in many ways. Point of view and voice were readily apparent in the stories we looked at. Many stories were less straight news accounts than analysis articles. The Post also stood out for sheer volume. It had the most stories of any of the papers we looked at, 212 over the time we studied it. The Post's front page isn't just full of stories, it is crammed with them - well over twenty on every front page studied, compared with six or seven in most U.S. papers. For this reason we captured only the top half of the front page for the weeks we examined, we were still looking at roughly 13 stories for each issue.²

The Post may be based in the U.S., but its coverage reaches far beyond U.S. borders. On the days we examined the top stories, a full 45% had what we classified as a home region geographic focus, stories triggered by news in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. This is a paper for those who want to keep up with what's going with politics and government policy back home. Not that the readers' new home was forgotten; almost of third of the stories (32%) in the Post had a U.S. national focus. Other regions of the world accounted for 18% of the stories we looked at, while the focus in only 5% was local.³

Geographic Focus of Pakistan Post

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Source: PEJ Research, numbers reflect total of 212 stories

Topics Covered in Pakistan Post

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Source: PEJ Research, numbers reflect total of 212 stories

The national-news-organization flavor of the Post becomes clearer when one looks at the topics on which it reported. The paper has a broad news agenda, but it is dominated by one thing, news from home. Fully 50% of the top stories in the Post on the days we examined the paper dealt with home-region issues.⁴

Beyond news from the old country, there was a wide range. Some 9% of the above-the-fold pieces in the Post dealt with U.S. politics, with most of those focused on the presidential campaign. Another 15% looked at domestic affairs (stories about the U.S., but not political in nature), with about a fifth of those about terrorism. Foreign affairs (stories about areas outside the U.S. but not specifically focused on the home region) made up 14% of the paper's top-of-the-front-page coverage.⁵

The Post is also a very serious paper, particularly when talking about events back home. Such stories were not light-hearted reminders of the goings-on in and around Pakistan, but weighty pieces about the future of the nation and of its president, Pervez Musharraf. Stories dealt with such issues as whether Musharraf would shed his general's uniform as Pakistan tried to move toward more traditional democracy, whether Pakistan would rejoin the British Commonwealth, and the state of politics in India.

The weekly also did a series of stories about Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, and allegations that he leaked nuclear secrets to other countries. Mainstream outlets covered that story, of course, but not with the interest or tenacity of the Post. The paper's coverage went on for weeks and dealt with everything from the breaking of the story to the punishment of Khan to court action against other nuclear scientists and the fate of some of Khan's documents, which were missing. In total the paper did 18 stories above the fold, during the 19 days examined, about Khan and the nuclear secrets, or about 8% of all coverage studied.⁶

The Post's coverage of U.S. politics included some of the flavor found in the mainstream American press. Take this headline from the March 11-17 paper: "U.S. presidential elections: John Kerry enjoys 52% approval rating compared to Bush's 44%." The piece was largely a campaign roundup, reporting that "both sides were gaining momentum" shortly after Kerry won the nomination.

But the paper also offered a more blunt look at politics. Stories were less concerned with being even-handed or even polite. A May 6-12 headline reported, "Bush, Kerry start boring Americans." The story, which was datelined Kabul/Quetta, spoke of the rise of a silent majority in the U.S., which it said "believes that this could be the most boring election in U.S. history."

There was a small amount of lifestyle and celebrity coverage (8%), though celebrity here is defined rather loosely and included stories like this special report from late July: "Daughter of Pakistan Banking Council chairman ties the knot with American youth." The paper also devoted seven stories (3%) above the fold on the front page to sports, in particular the World Cup of Cricket.⁷

The biggest question, of course, is how do the Pakistan Post's readers use the paper? As an immigrant link to the homeland, its coverage is without peer. It discusses the intricacies of the Pakistani political world. But if the Post is the only source of news for its readers, they will have a very limited view of the U.S., judging at least by the front page. National stories beyond the presidential race are largely nonexistent. Pieces about news around the country or about pending legislation, the stuff immigrants may need for an understanding of their new home, are rare.