Daily Times

For some, it’s the silver lining while for others it’s return of the happy days. You can call it what you want but Daily Times this week has started clearing all outstanding salaries of all employees.

Against all odds and speculations that the paper would fold, the management has shown its seriousness and has arranged to inject the required money with the commitment of continuing to fulfill its financial obligations.

DT being in the financial crisis is an open secret in the industry. It’s one reason people have used to troll and harass me ever since I joined it last year while deliberately overlooking the fact that I, too, am just an employee who chose to work under this crisis.

Up until a year ago, I would have laughed at the possibility of ever working at Daily Times but with Raza Rumi as the editor, it’s no laughing matter. I chose to quit my very well paying government/development sector job to return to digital journalism and become a part of this great team that believed they could revive Daily Times.

It’s a privilege being part of his team and together we have achieved something incredible. Not only the paper has regained its popularity as one of the strongest voices in media business, it has also shown the promise to come out of the financial dig it’s been in for several years now.

The trolls posing as idealists called for shutting down of the paper because it was facing in paying its liabilities without realising this is a public limited company and if went bankrupt or out of business, there was no guarantee of payments to the employees. Not only that but all those employees would be out of jobs. The same trolls reeked of utter hypocrisy when they wouldn’t let any chance of bashing DT slip but would be completely silence about over 30 other media companies — including leading ones — who also haven’t been able to pay salaries for several months.

As of now, DT is not only paying current salaries but also clearing backlogs accumulated over the years. This also dispels the rumours and accusations that DT had made the staffers sign waivers to forgo their previous salaries.

I couldn’t be happier that things are looking up for DT. It’s a paper with a legacy worth carrying forward. It’s a paper that will live, after all.

Next up: making DT the number one newspaper. God willing.

Needless to say, I’m writing this blog post in personal capacity. These are my own sentiments and experiences and are not representative of DT or Media Times Limited.