No not the actor Talat Hussain. Its the face we have been seeing after September 11th of PTV New Night. Usually after the kahabarnama! This guy is very talented. I really became a fan when he asked the Indian information minister some very blunt question!
Here is an article about him!
Courtesy Dawn Images
A quiet revolution has taken place in the current affairs department on PTV. Ministers, politicians and diplomats are being forced to answer questions that were avoided in the past. Awkward, honest, relevant questions, with no room to wriggle out without answering - a revolution indeed for state television.
And the architect of this revolution, Syed Talat Hussain, modestly describes himself as ‘an ordinary MA pass journalist’. That description belies his media credentials. His degree in International Relations was followed by reporting positions in two English dailies, and then an editor’s position in another. Today, he reports and writes opinion pieces for Dawn, contributes to a host of foreign publications including the prestigious New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Time magazine, presents Newsnight and other TV and radio programmes and works as a stringer for CNN. A truly all-round media man.
Hussain has put his varied media experience to good use in PTV’s Newsnight, the daily current affairs discussion show he hosts.
“I try to combine the depth of print with the speed of the electronic media, whilst avoiding the pitfalls of both - long-mindedness of the former, shallowness of the latter.” Judging by the massive ratings Newsnight gets, one can easily say that he has succeeded in making it an all round show.
But he remains a print man at heart: “print is my first calling - that, too, opinion pieces in print.” This, for him, is ‘serious’ journalism. “TV, by its very nature, will always have a shallow streak to it,” he says.
Nonetheless, Talat Hussain does derive an enormous amount of satisfaction from his programme. “I have never done any programme in my professional career that gave me the feedback like Newsnight.” Thanks to Prime TV, the programme has a large Pakistani expatriate viewership, apart from the millions that watch the channel back home. Hussain says he is humbled by the extent of what is said of his programme; yet sobered by the added responsibility he feels as host.
As an interviewer, he is determined to put all ‘legitimate questions’ to his guests. He claims he would not hesitate to raise controversial issues like army corruption and democracy. But he draws the line at personal questions and discourtesy. He sees himself as a host, with a duty to ‘help and facilitate’ his guests, not embarrass them or “pull the rug from under their feet.” Tim Sebastian of BBC’s Hardtalk is therefore definitely not a role model.
“I don’t like flying at my guests throats the way Sebastian does,” says Hussain.
Has he ever felt overawed by anyone? “Never. I don’t get overawed by anyone.” He hastens to add after a pause, “Not for any other reason, but because I have seen too many political changes to be overawed by power.”
If anything, it is the ephemeral nature of power that overawes him. “Also, I have no personal axe to grind, I’m not looking for anything.”
He praises the Musharraf government for its tolerance of criticism, but adds the biting caveat that “criticism doesn’t matter; a government does what it wants.”
What is the best interview he’s ever done? “Wendy Chamberlain, the US Ambassador. It was spot-on in terms of timing and the issues raised.” He describes the Q&A as super dynamic: “I was trying to drag her towards my questions, she was trying to drag me towards her answers.”
He obviously won the tussle because next day, at her house for dinner, she told him ‘You’re lucky I’m still talking to you!’
Who would he most like to interview? “George W, Bush - an open, candid interview without his advisers.” Given the American President’s penchant for gaffs and limited grasp of affairs, one can’t help thinking that’s too easy a prey.
On TV Hussain comes across as very serious and grim, rarely smiling. But in person he is warm and affable, and has what he himself describes as a “trenchant sense of humour”. He is refreshingly free of the showmanship and airs that afflict other famous TV personalities - a trait reflected in his lifestyle too. Walking into his house in Islamabad one gets a real sense of someone determined to live by his own values rather than those of society. Ostentatiousness is definitely not on the agenda: home is simple but cosy and welcoming. Parked outside is Hussain’s orange Beetle.
Family life is clearly very important to Talat Hussain. Ask him what he does in his spare time and apart from ‘exercise, exercise, exercise’ and reading, he loves to spend time with wife Tehmina and baby daughter Afza. His marriage was a mixture of arranged and personal choice. Tehmina is also his first cousin, but for 22 years he had never met her (‘that tells you how social I am!’) When he finally got to talk to her, he liked her and proposed through his mother.
There is much in Talat Hussain’s personal life that marks him out from typical Pakistani men. He describes himself as a man shaped by women - first his mother, then his girlfriends, now his wife and, judging by his very obvious devotion to Afza, his daughter in future.
Talat Hussain is the youngest of eight brothers and sisters. One of his siblings, Dr Rifaat Hussain, is Chairman of the DSS Dept at Quaid-e-Azam University as well as a regular compere on Newsmorning - a programme that follows a similar format to Newsnight.
As an intensely private person, Talat admits that fame is a burden. He would like to be able to walk around a bazaar or go to a restaurant without being conscious of prying eyes, but he accepts “that’s the package”. He also refuses to let it change his personal life: “I’ll wear my faded jeans - and keep driving my his Beetle.”
So what drives him? “Work, I need to work.” That too is something he says he inherited from his workaholic mother - ‘the first to get up, the last to sleep.’
What of the future? Would a tempting offer lure him away from Pakistan? “I love this country. I love Islamabad. I think it is the most beautiful city on the face of the Earth, and having travelled extensively, that means a lot.”
But he would like to move on career-wise, into production. He wants to make his own news programmes as a one-man unit, “do my own shooting, do my own lighting, my own sound, write my own scripts.”
He firmly rules out politics. “I have invested a lot of time and energy in building up credibility for myself as a journalist. I’m not going to let this be destroyed just because I want to feel the sense of power - which is ephemeral anyway.”