Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper that was launched in British India by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1941. It is the largest English newspaper in Pakistan, and is widely considered the country's newspaper of record. Dawn is the flagship publication of the Dawn Media Group, which also owns local radio station CityFM89 as well as the marketing and media magazine Aurora.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founding father, launched the newspaper in Delhi on 26 October 1941, with the goal of establishing it as a mouthpiece for the All-India Muslim League. The first issue was printed at Latifi Press on 12 October 1942. Based in Karachi, it also maintains offices in Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and the capital city of Islamabad, in addition to having correspondents abroad. , it has a weekday circulation of over 109,000. The newspaper's current chief editor is Zaffar Abbas.
History
thumb|[[Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of the Dawn newspaper|alt=]]
Dawn began as a weekly publication, based in New Delhi.</blockquote>
Dawn became a daily newspaper in October 1944 under the leadership of its editor, Pothan Joseph, who later resigned in 1944 to take up the position of the government's principal information officer in part because of differences with Jinnah over the Pakistan Movement. He was succeeded by Altaf Husain who galvanized the Muslims of India for independence by his editorials, which earned him the ire of the Congress Party and of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy and Governor-General of the British Raj both of whom wanted a united India.
In 1947, due to the Partition of India, senior Dawn staff led by Altaf Husain moved to Karachi, which led to that city becoming the head office of the newspaper.
On 12 November 2025, Dawn mistakenly printed a business report that still contained a ChatGPT prompt, violating the paper's own AI-use policy, and later retracted the text with a public apology.
Features
thumb|Issue of Dawn newspaper published from Karachi on 15 August 1947
Dawn regularly carries syndicated articles from western newspapers such as The Independent, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post.
On Sundays, the weekend advertiser carries three sections namely "Ad Buzz", "Career", and "Real Estate".
Publication of the US diplomatic cables
On 19 May 2011, Dawn Media Group signed a memorandum of understanding with Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, for the exclusive first use in Pakistan of all the secret US diplomatic cables related to political and other developments in the country.
An announcement printed in the newspaper and posted on the website read: