Trends Report

Executive Summary

As the traditional and mainstream news media in Pakistan continue to face challenges of independence, safety and inclusivity, a new crop of independent digital-only media has emerged during the past 10 years to serve the information needs of the public.

These “digital native” media outlets are expressing a commitment to public interest journalism, reporting on local issues with a focus on diversity and inclusivity, establishing their content niche, and striving to understand and connect with their online audiences.

Despite their limited resources and the pressure of competing with the mainstream press on one hand and with the algorithm-friendly online clickbait content on the other, most of these independent digital media outlets are trying to provide access to in-depth, reliable and accessible journalism on issues ranging from human rights to climate change and governance. But little is known about their challenges and strengths.

This report identifies the features of the 55 media outlets identified by the Public Interest Media Directory of Pakistan and offers some observations about the trends and patterns in their coverage and operations.

Key findings:

Key areas of coverage: More than 80% media outlets say climate, gender and human rights are the main areas of their coverage, including reporting on the rights of marginalised and minority communities. This indicates a public-interest commitment from the digital-only media.
Type of reporting: Most digital media (nearly 90%) are focused on general news reporting, with traditional text and video formats. Fewer than 10% are devoting resources to investigative reporting, explanatory journalism or podcasts.
Type of registration: Around 60% of the media outlets are registered as companies or non-profit organisations. The rest are operating as informal and often voluntary passion projects. Out of the registered digital media, most have opted for some form of company status. Only around 12% of the registered outlets are non-profit organisations or affiliated with non-profits.
Women founders and staff: Only 20% of the media founders featured in the directory are women. Around three quarters of the digital-only media outlets are started by men. Nearly one in every five digital media organisation does not have a woman journalist in leadership positions.
Revenue sources: Among the digital-only media, the primary revenue sources are services, advertising and grants (in that order). Around 15% media also rely on social media monetization and 7% are partially or fully bootstrapped (self-financed by their founders). None of the media reported reader revenue as their primary source and only around one in every 10 digital news organisations have even started exploring reader revenue models.
Size of operations: Most of the digital native media outlets (60%) are small startups with at most five staff members. Around 15% of the media outlets appear to be completely volunteer run, with no full-time staff.
History and scale of coverage: Nearly 90% of the digital native media outlets in the study started operating during the past 10 years from 2015 to 2024. A quarter each of the outlets are based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. Majority of them have bilingual news output, pairing Urdu with English or regional-language content, and provide national coverage of issues rather than limiting to local issues only.

We derive inspiration from the courage and passion that some of these independent digital media outlets display, and we hope they will continue to grow. Their existence and survival are necessary to ensure that people can access and use trustworthy information for their public and political participation, especially from areas which do not receive sufficient coverage in the print and broadcast media. The independent digital media can also serve as a safeguard against online disinformation.

We hope that the directory and the trends report will help these media outlets to also collaborate with each other and bring recognition to them from their peers, academia, researchers, the development sector and multilateral organisations that support media development.

Finally, this exercise does not represent all the digital-only media in Pakistan. We hope this will be a first step to identifying, mapping and featuring many more independent digital media outlets in the country in the years to follow.

Introduction

The purpose of this report and the associated searchable directory of independent Pakistani digital media is to bring more visibility to these media organisations, to understand their dynamics and operational strengths and weaknesses, and in doing so, support independent digital media in the country.

The report briefly maps the ecosystem of digital native media organisations, with a focus on public interest journalism, across Pakistan. Its findings rely on the data available in the searchable media directory, which contains information about the types of news they cover, their management, their revenue streams and their web presence. An important piece of information missing in this report is financial data: the expenditures and revenues of the media outlets. This information will be collected and published in subsequent updates to the report, based on availability and consent of the featured media outlets.

The data for this report was collected through a structured survey questionnaire as part of the Media Innovation Small Grants applications process of the Yaqeen Media Viability Fund in June 2024. Additional information was found through desk research from publicly available sources.

In this first update, only formal digital news outlets that have a consistent web presence and editorial output and, importantly, evidence of public interest journalism in their archives were considered; information about management structures and team sizes was not a mandatory concern as many of the formal digital media are also part-time projects of their founders, but operational considerations were sometimes reviewed for final inclusion in the directory and analysis.

It meant that many informal or social media-only news pages were not included. This was done only because from a research perspective the credentials of formal digital media can be verified with more confidence and in a shorter span of time than for other information sources. In subsequent updates to the data, efforts will be made to also include a wide variety of public interest digital media sources.

The report is presented with the hope that it will benefit the founders and executives of the digital media outlets; Funders and investors who want to support independent digital media in Pakistan; Academics and researchers who want to analyse and evaluate the digital media sector from various perspectives, including content quality, diversity, business viability and revenue models; and, Policymakers and other stakeholders who have a part to play in ensuring that the laws and policies related to media and Internet consider the needs of digital public interest media.

Section 1: Geographical Spread

The 55 digital media outlets featured in this analysis cover the length and breadth of the country, from Gilgit to Gwadar. Altogether, they represent 22 unique cities or districts, with 10 locations having multiple media outlets. Among these are the federal, provincial and territorial capitals but also rural and remote districts that are often ignored or forgotten in mainstream news coverage.

Yet, large areas of Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh as well as Azad Jammu & Kashmir are not represented by local digital media in the data. This may not necessarily be due to the absence of digital media there but could also be a demonstration of the limitations of the sample for this report.

In terms of regional representation, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (29%) and Punjab (25%) had the most and second-highest number of digital media outlets respectively.

Section 2 Organisational Status and Experience

A majority of the Pakistani digital native media (87%) started operating between 2015 and 2024, giving the oldest of them around 10 years of experience now, but a third of the total launched only since 2020.

In this sample, the year 2017 appears to be a watershed for the proliferation of digital-only media. This was just before the 2018 general elections and the financial crisis of the broadcast media industry, which led to layoffs and many journalists turning to digital from traditional media.

Available information shows that only 32 digital media outlets (around 60% of the total) have formally registered as organisations. Out of these 32, almost all are some types of private company (28) while only a few are non-profit organisations or are run by non-profits (4). At least 30% of the digital media in the directory have so far not registered and are operating as small-scale voluntary news outlets. This might prevent them from accessing certain funding or revenue sources.

Section 3 Journalism Content

A total of 29 digital media outlets (or 53% of the total) provide national news coverage. Only two media outlets in the sample had a completely local, city-based focus. But even one of these, the Times of Karachi, covers a metropolis of over 20 million people.

Urdu and English are prominent languages of the news output. But nearly a quarter of the digital media (14 out of the 55) are publishing in at least one regional language in addition to Urdu and/or English.

In all, the 55 digital-only media claimed to publish in 14 unique languages among them.

The news medium for one-thirds of the digital media each is either video-only or text-only.

Climate, human rights, gender and community issues are among the top content priorities of the digital-only media outlets, indicating a focus on public interest news coverage.

A vast majority of the digital native media (87%) identify with ‘general news’ as their main journalism output technique. Between 50 to 60% of the digital media outlets also publish ‘analysis’ and ‘opinion pieces’ related to current affairs. The share of media outlets that mentioned publishing investigative or explanatory reporting was low (5 to 7%), indicating that only a handful of the public interest media are able to devote resources towards it.

Section 4 Distribution and Audiences

Most of the digital natives publish their content through websites and various social media platforms.

Facebook was the most common publishing platform, with all 100% of the identified digital media publishing there. This was followed by YouTube: at least 51 (or 93%) also have channels on the video-sharing website to distribute content. Despite being banned in Pakistan since February 2024, around 87% of the media use Twitter/X for content sharing as well. Around 80% have news websites, and around two-thirds also have Tik Tok and Instagram presence.

But the divide becomes apparent in terms of primary publishing avenues. Around 42% use websites as the primary platform, followed by Facebook which is the primary distribution channel for 38% of the media outlets in the sample.

While pageview statistics for the identified media outlets could not be independently verified, their social media statistics offer a clue to the digital news audiences they command. (Note: All statistics are from October 2024. Actual numbers may vary.)

The Facebook followers of the digital media outlets range from a few hundred for small outlets to over a million for the largest. However, given that there are over 70 million social media users in Pakistan in 2024, the Facebook numbers for digital media are low. Only six digital-only media outlets (The Current, South Today, ProPakistani, Tribal News Network, Swat News, and The Centrum Media) have more than 1 million followers but they all remain below 2 million readers.

On YouTube, only nine media outlets have surpassed 100,000 subscribers, and only one digital-only media organisation, Raftar, has gone over half a million subscribers. In comparison, current affairs channels on YouTube run by influential media personalities, including former broadcast journalists, have several million subscribers.

In the sample, ProPakistani has the largest Twitter follower base of 95,300 while on Instagram, The Current has the most followers (233,000) and Times of Karachi has the largest Tik Tok account with 371,000 followers.

The audience statistics appear to reveal that the outreach of the digital-only media is limited, which again might affect their reliance on advertising revenue. It might also mean that they have to look for qualitative impact of their coverage rather than big numbers.

Section 5 Management, Staff and Diversity

Around half of the digital native media organisations (28 out of 55, or 51%) have one founder each and 25 media outlets were co-founded by two or more individuals.

Of the 28 solo founders, only four are women.

Overall, out of 81 media founders in the sample, 80% (or 65) were men.

In terms of the number of organisations, 39 media organisations were started by male journalists or executives only, while 14 were started by either women or both men and women.

Around one in every five digital natives do not have any woman journalist in their leadership or management. These, of course, include small start-ups with little or no permanent staff. However, around 75% of the public interest digital media outlets said they had one or more woman in their leadership, giving a positive indication towards diversity in their newsrooms.

The number of full-time employees of the digital natives shows the state of their operational scale.

Eight out of the 55 media organisations have no full-time staff. Exactly 60% have five or fewer full-time employees. Only 15% of the organisations had 10 or more staff members and only one has 50 or more employees.

The identified digital-only media are therefore mostly small start-ups with limited financial and human resources and might be relying on contributors and volunteer support from journalist colleagues.

Section 6 Revenue Sources

Revenue stream information was not available for eight of the 55 digital media outlets.

Of the remaining 47, around 57% (or 27 organisations) have diversified their revenue streams, but the remaining 42% (or 20 outlets) only have a single source of revenue generation.

Private-sector advertising (47%), services (45%), and social media monetisation and grants (34% each) were the most commonly identified revenue streams for the 47 digital natives for whom revenue information was available.

However, in terms of primary dependence, the largest share was services (including production, training, research consultancies etc.), with 28% of the 47 media outlets using it to subsidise their news operations.

Overall, 15% of the 55 digital media organisations also have a reliance on social media monetization and 7% of the outlets depend on full or partial self-financing from their founders.

The trends report will be updated on a regular basis to reflect latest additions in the public interest media directory. For more information or queries, please use the contact page to get in touch.