Pakistani journalistic attitudes: Judging, affecting and appreciating

The article presents a study of journalistic attitudes in Pakistani news reporting and explores ‘reporter voice’ in specific. Drawing upon appraisal analyses (with a focus on attitude), we analysed 60 hard news reports taken from three renowned Pakistani newspapers namely The Dawn , The Nation and The News . We argue that the subsistence of the reporter voice is observed generally in Pakistani news reporting through its curbed authorial voice and increased authorial distance. It is observed that Pakistani reporter voice employs negative affect as well as sanctioning attitudes explicitly in crime news reporting. Moreover, the curtailment of attitudes in Pakistani news reporting is visible in the reports of governance and state. Such conformity of ‘reporter voice’ is strictly observed in the journalistic style of The Dawn newspaper than The Nation and The News . The findings suggest that this diversion of news interpersonal in various genres of news reporting as well as newspapers of Pakistan can be on sociocultural grounds where an indigenous communication style and the receptive behaviour of the target readers of different newspapers play a significant role in shaping a distinct reporting style of Pakistani news reporters. Moreover, this study also suggests further exploration of Pakistani reporter voice with a historical-political perspective of different newspapers of Pakistan.