Born: N/A
Profession: Journalist
Affiliation(s): Geo News
Citizenship: Pakistani
Sana Bucha is a Pakistani television journalist and anchor who currently works for GEO News. She hosted and served as the executive director for the current affairs show Crisis Cell before switching over to the newly-started program Laikin. Bucha covers topics such as Pakistani politics and foreign relations, South Asia and Middle East affairs and American involvement in the region.
Sana Bucha joined GEO Television Network in 2003. Bucha started off as a production development associate and moved on to becoming producer for the first English Language Bulletin on GEO. Other than producing it, Bucha also hosted the bulletin frequently. After the English bulletin, Bucha hosted and produced the channel’s first ever English show, “News Day.” That in itself became a stepping stone for the network’s first English Language Channel, GEO English. She worked as an executive producer for the channel, hiring, training, designing and managing a young team of enthusiasts who were nothing short of brilliant! The Musharraf government and its obvious bias towards GEO (the bias was mutual!) halted the channel in its tracks a year and a half later and Bucha found herself back to where she started: GEO News, Pakistan’s most trusted news channel. Not to mention the highest rated and the most watched, not only in Pakistan but in the US, UK and the Middle East. Bucha was back on screen as the host of Crisis Cell.
Known for her great inter-personal skills, Bucha is quick to find support amongst people and her show’s ratings were a clear indicator to how popular she is. From risking her life in flood struck areas, where there was no government, no army, no willing helicopters and no roads to the brutal killing of two teenage boys in Sialkot, Bucha has time and again proven herself to be not just a TV face but an ethical journalist.
Bucha is back and now hosts "Lekin," Monday through Wednesday from 7-8 p.m.
PST. Bucha's revolutionary program breaks down and examines stories making the headlines or those that get just the back page but deserve more. What sets Bucha apart from the leading news anchors in Pakistan, is her eye for detail, unbiased approach and impeccable dress sense. Bucha knows how to fight the good fight but will not resort to the typical screaming, yelling female banshees Pakistanis have become used to on their TV screens.
Along with her program, Bucha is dedicated to tackling core issues that plague the country. she is working on different projects that will instil a much needed changed in Pakistan in the years to come.
While at GEO News, Bucha secured many interviews including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Af-Pak envoy, Richard Holbrooke, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shams-ul-Hasan, Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and asylum-seeking, Baloch nationalist, Harbiyar Marri. The issues that interest her most include terrorism, religion, women’s empowerment, the economy, foreign relations and Pakistan’s own checkered dictatorship history. Her independent, center-left views make her an anomaly at GEO News and her program promises to be an original – fearless, impartial and accurate – lekin is the new but at GEO. Bucha has written for various publications including The Wall Street Journal, Newsline and The News. She has produced documentaries in sync with foreign news agencies on domestic violence in Pakistan, the blasphemy law in Pakistan and most recently, the after effects of the worst floods the nation has ever seen.
Bucha Basics
1. How did you get into the TV/News business?
This is something I have asked myself several times over the last few years. It’s my favourite question on a bad day at GEO. Haven’t figured out the answer but don’t regret it.
2. What are you looking forward to most about working on Lekin?
As a child, I’ve always asked too many questions. Now its time to question the question.
3. Name one thing fans would be surprised to hear about you?
That I used to be 260 pounds. I’m a weight loss success story.
4. What is your most memorable encounter as a TV personality?
When I was covering the IDPs during the Swat operation and most recently the floods, people kept asking me if I was Benazir Bhutto’s daughter. One fan recently asked me if I was Benazir Bhutto herself. He probably doesn’t watch news.
5. What is the best advice you have ever received?
Stay on the path. Don’t deviate.
6. If you could invite any three people (dead or alive) to dinner, who would they be?
Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Osama bin Laden and President Zardari. Jinnah because he hasn’t eaten in a long time, OBL is probably starving and seeing Zardari both will lose their appetite.
Fast Facts
1. Favorite book:
My favorite book is Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
2. Ideal way to spend a day off:
Reading
3. Childhood idol:
Pink Panther (because he was so thin), Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela
4. Biggest pet peeve:
Being misunderstood because most people talk and never listen
5. Biggest fear:
Knowing my facts less than my opponent
6. Favorite movie:
The Pianist
One or the Other
1. Cat or Dog
Cat
2. Beach Vacation or Trip to the Mountains
Beach vacation
3. Chips or Cookies
I’m perpetually on a diet and there are no nice diet cookies or chips! Not even Weight Watchers.
4. Newspapers or Magazines —
the Internet?
5. Superman or Spiderman
Spiderman
6. Mac or PC
Mac
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