Mehdi Hasan

Mehdi Hasan SI was a Pakistani left-wing journalist, media historian, and academician. He was one of Pakistan's most prominent communication experts, with a specialization in political analysis. Early life and education Hasan was born on 27 June 1937 in Panipat, British India. His family migrated to Pakistan in 1947 and settled in Sahiwal. Hasan did Master in Journalism and PhD in mass communication from the University of the Punjab on Role of Press in Formation of Public Opinion 1857–1947. He won a Fulbright Scholar (1990) at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he conducted research on "Coverage of Third World Countries in the American Mass Media". Career Hasan joined the faculty of mass communication at the University of the Punjab in 1967. After retirement, he joined Beaconhouse National University, served as Dean of School of Media and Communication. Hasan was a frequent commentator and panellist on television and radio stations, where he brought his academic research into social context. He wrote extensively on the subject of Pakistan's history, journalism, mass communication and political parties, but his book The Political history of Pakistan is a widely used reference by journalists. His long-held personal view was that distortion of facts by news media is distorting our history.