Express Tribune Fires Staff in Bulk from Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar

In a shocking move, the Express Tribune has fired around 30 of its editorial staff in Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi.

The sacked staff is mainly from the editorial department and were working on desk. They include city editors, sub editors and page makers. Reporting teams, however, have been retained for now.

Official sources said that the abrupt decision sent shock-waves throughout the entire media group who are worried about the next move of the owner, “Lakhanis”, who have a history of shutting down publications and channels including Business Today, Hero TV and Express 24/7.

Specifically, staff members working at desk at Tribune office Karachi and leftover reporters at different stations are uncertain about their fate because they have been communicated that working employees are going to be re-interviewed by the management and will be retained on the basis of satisfactory performance.

The firings come at the heels of Fahd Hussain being appointed as the new Editor for the publication. His predecessor, Kamal Siddique, resigned to take on a new role at IBA as Director Center of Excellence in Journalism.

According to Hassan Zaidi, the reason cited for the wholesale changes was low circulation numbers. Sultan Lakhani, the owner of Express Tribune, hopes to merge the creative teams of the Tribune paper and Express News channel. As a whole, the Group is going to focus on digital media from now onwards.

The fired employees have been promised three months of salaries as compensation but there’s concern since sources indicate that the salary situation at Tribune has been uneven at best. Salries, during past few months, were always delayed by at least two weeks if not more.


  • sad really sad. just like PTCL do but PTCL do this every year, mostly on management likes and dislikes.and to demoralize regular staff and to opt VSS.

  • Express Tribune is anti-pakistan newspaper. They publish all the articles and comments against Pakistan and Islam but no article or comment goes through which is against their western masters and they stoop so low and publish cheap n vulgar news very happily pretending to be modern.n enlightened.

  • Pakistan should fire Express Tribune and all those running it from behind the scenes. This is an anti Pakistan newspaper whose only agenda seems to be ridiculing Pakistan in every second article specially with regards to India. I am all certain that such kind of newspaper wouldn’t make a day in countries like India. Sooner this newspaper and its online propaganda platform shuts down, better it is.

  • Lakhanis – are in the cigarette business they were illegally selling Rothmans Cigarette, without any agreement with the parent company till they were caught. They are loan defaulters and banks have filed criminal charges against them, no action has been taken against them so far because of their political connections. They have a reputation of being drug barons too. They are media owners for only one reason – so that they can blackmail people who may come after them. They are not interested in the media itself or anyone working in it. They have their only one interest is how to protect their shady operations. If their political connections stop protecting them, they will be the first one to run out of the country and dump their businesses. All other criminal charges might come to light.


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