One year ago, Pakistani English newspaper scene became suddenly different when Express Tribune entered. The promise was good and it had weight. Coupled with the esteemed International Herald Tribune, the paper made a lot of sense. However, as the time passed, the paper just became empty content-wise. Celebrities were writing op-eds about why they should be burgers. George ka Pakistan gave all his critique but never gave any solutions. Very few of Express Tribune op-ed writers give very honest advice to solve problems. Other than that, it has opinions for the sake of having opinions.
The second week of April was the celebratory week for Express Tribune. A celebratory supplement was released and a separate section was given on the website for this very purpose. But, in all honesty, Express Tribune were not humble. Rather than reflecting on what they have achieved, they were getting a bit too full of themselves. While getting full of yourself is not a major sin but loosing track of your reality is tradegic. On their website, the section of Jobs next to Anniversary has not been updated for quite a while; as I have observed, there have been no entries since April 8th.
Furthermore, on the same Anniversary section you will find a topic, "When will it Dawn on you that if you don’t Express yourself you’ll be yesterday’s News". Written by Mahim Maher, the article is full of corporate self-praise of which one cannot read more than two paragraphs of. Furthermore, I am sure Mr. Maher is a learned guy but if he would have checked the market facts - something ET fails at quite regularly - he would have noticed that Express is technically not an English paper. Ask your news vendor (anywhere in Karachi) for Express and he will hand over a copy of the urdu newspaper named Express. It seems it never DAWNed upon him that the real name is Tribune. He should be careful of the language in which he wants to Express, it may end up nowhere.
In his "appreciative" note to the readers, the publisher Bilal Lakhani wrote:
It seems that Express Tribune has a poor web-admin team. Only by doing a simple comparision on Compete.com, as you can see in the diagram below, how neck and neck it is. A site that has yet to reach 50,000 unique visitors is claiming that it made competition feel weak in their legs.
Furthermore, by using SEMRush.com, I have tried to figure out the Search Engine Traffic for both of the websites, again the neck of DAWN is higher. You can view the comparison below:
Moreover, it has been argued that on Alexa, ET is almost near DAWN. On April 20, 2011, the day this writer is writing this piece, DAWN stands at 66 and Express Tribune stands at 79. If that is not convincing, then a comparison of both sites at Alexa reveals a lot of facts.
The first graph shows the Daily Unique Visitors. Even on a good day, Express Tribune could not even touch the lowest mark of DAWN.
The second graph shows the Bounce Rate of both websites. A good website has a low bounce rate as it is able to retain its visitors with its content. The graph speaks for itself, hence, here I would not explain.
The third graph shows the Daily Pageviews per User over the last six months. Apart for the last month only, it is usually seen that the average given by DAWN is the best possible of Tribune.
There has been an argument that Express Tribune has been technologically advance. However, the claim does not hold too much ground either. DAWN was the first English newspaper in Pakistan that launched its app on the Nokia Ovi platform. Its blog section was created before the launch of Express Tribune. Furthermore, content-wise DAWN has better blogs - not every Tom, Dick, Harry, Disney Watcher and A' Level student is writing on their blog. Furthermore, just like the newspaper section of the website, DAWN's blog are properly edited.
With additional assistance from Fahad Hayat.
The second week of April was the celebratory week for Express Tribune. A celebratory supplement was released and a separate section was given on the website for this very purpose. But, in all honesty, Express Tribune were not humble. Rather than reflecting on what they have achieved, they were getting a bit too full of themselves. While getting full of yourself is not a major sin but loosing track of your reality is tradegic. On their website, the section of Jobs next to Anniversary has not been updated for quite a while; as I have observed, there have been no entries since April 8th.
Furthermore, on the same Anniversary section you will find a topic, "When will it Dawn on you that if you don’t Express yourself you’ll be yesterday’s News". Written by Mahim Maher, the article is full of corporate self-praise of which one cannot read more than two paragraphs of. Furthermore, I am sure Mr. Maher is a learned guy but if he would have checked the market facts - something ET fails at quite regularly - he would have noticed that Express is technically not an English paper. Ask your news vendor (anywhere in Karachi) for Express and he will hand over a copy of the urdu newspaper named Express. It seems it never DAWNed upon him that the real name is Tribune. He should be careful of the language in which he wants to Express, it may end up nowhere.
In his "appreciative" note to the readers, the publisher Bilal Lakhani wrote:
The result is that now The Express Tribune is among the top three English language newspapers in the country in terms of circulation; online we are neck and neck with a paper that had a 60-year head start.Yes, that neck and neck. Not the first time that the Express Tribune made a faulty statement. I have seen "is was" being used next to each other. I have seen someone's credentials being linked with someone else. There have been times when people asked them to correct sentences, dates, and other facts. Coming back to the context of the said statement, it seems that Express Tribune lives in fool's paradise. We all know that "a paper that had 60-year head start" is the veteran newspaper DAWN. When I first read this statement, my mind went "orly!"
It seems that Express Tribune has a poor web-admin team. Only by doing a simple comparision on Compete.com, as you can see in the diagram below, how neck and neck it is. A site that has yet to reach 50,000 unique visitors is claiming that it made competition feel weak in their legs.
Furthermore, by using SEMRush.com, I have tried to figure out the Search Engine Traffic for both of the websites, again the neck of DAWN is higher. You can view the comparison below:
 |
| Coutesy: SEMRush.com |
The first graph shows the Daily Unique Visitors. Even on a good day, Express Tribune could not even touch the lowest mark of DAWN.
 |
| Courtesy: Alexa.com |
 |
| Courtesy: Alexa.com |
 |
| Courtesy: Alexa.com |
The last graph shows the Time in minutes spent on both of these websites over the past six months. Again over the past month, foe the first time, Express Tribune was able to beat DAWN but it can be due to the week of celebration.
 |
| Courtesy: Alexa.com |
However, Express Tribune introduced a comments section with its news - something that DAWN does on a very limited basis. Then again, the comments section has no policy of moderation. Indeed, some editing is done but a lot of the time it is just free game there.
Indeed, Express Tribune has changed the game and has forced a much-needed change in the industry but rather than being boastful and self-praising, they should have kept the profile low. The newspaper has a lot of credibility issues, especially in the learned circles of Pakistan. Furthermore, the general perception about the paper is that it is more "elite-based". The niche it caters is not the one who find commonly in Pakistan. Rather then comparing yourself with the industry benchmarks, it would have been better if you would have tried to look upon your faults and fix them.
For example, they should try that the following notice appears less on their website:
For example, they should try that the following notice appears less on their website:
The writer is Publisher, The Express Tribune.Happy Anniversary, indeed!
Published in The Express Tribune, April 12th, 2011.
This article has been revised to make the following correction.
Correction: April 17, 2011
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of the article stated ‘neck and neck’ as ‘neck in neck’. We thank our commenter ‘ali’ for pointing it out.
With additional assistance from Fahad Hayat.
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