With news banned from TV, Pakistanis find it on the Web

Cut off: A man tries to tune television sets after authorities ended cable service in Pakistan after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf announced emergency rule and is stripping away liberties for fear independent news reports will further fan his unpopularity.
Kamal Khan/AP

Islamabad, Pakistan - When Hamzah Tariq, the owner of a small software-development firm, returned home on Saturday night after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had declared a "state of emergency," he discovered that all of the news channels were missing from his cable signal. The only option: PTV, Pakistan's state-run news channel.

"There was a ridiculous show about bridal makeup and then I read the ticker at the bottom: 'Chief of the Army Staff declares emergency. Suspends 1973 constitution,' " says Mr. Tariq. After half an hour of meticulously applied mascara, there was a news bulletin. "The newscaster came on and read out those same lines, nothing more, and said "and now, some sports."

So Tariq and millions of other Pakistanis, faced with a ban on about a dozen domestic and international TV news stations and curbs on newspapers, are finding breaking news in live video feeds and special blogs set up online – the only forum of public discourse that the media ban has missed. READ MORE