Rifat Jawaid
Hello everybody,
It’s been nearly eight months and it seems we’ve been here for ages.
In these eight months, we’ve scaled new heights while establishing ourselves as a credible news brand.
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Here’s a snapshot of our successes so far, which have been achieved organically unlike other news websites.
- 27,000+ followers on Twitter
- 20,000+ likes on Facebook
- 1 million monthly website page views
- 11 million monthly Twitter impressions
- 12 million monthly reach on Facebook
Whether it was the One Rank One Pension or the more recent editorial on the corruption in the DDCA, we’ve driven the agenda nationally on several occasions. Testament to this is how content of our shiny editorials have found space even on the platforms of mainstream and international media.
Contrary to the views of some cynics, we’ve been able to continue this journey of eight months with the help of few like-minded friends and my own life-long savings. But these resources at my disposal have now dried out posing questions to the long-term sustainability of this initiative.
Many of you would recognise that newsgathering is a costly exercise and to be able to compete with the rest of the media, we too need resources. Since we’ve always stood for fearless journalism, our reporting has never been hostage to the consideration to take care of the interests of corporates or political parties.
And that explains why, corporates don’t fancy showcasing their products on our platform. That’s because we refuse to guarantee favourable reporting concerning them in exchange of securing lucrative ads or sponsorship deals.
Jantakareporter.com, has been and continues to remain my passion as I firmly believed in the need to create an alternative media platform, which not only reported with utmost objectivity and sense of responsibility, but also cared about public sensitivity.
Chennai floods was a classic example, when, not only did we report on the devastation but also highlighted the stories of humanity.
In Bihar elections, we demonstrated how reporting without the pressure from political class was possible. Corruption in DDCA is a more recent example, where you saw the not-so-subtle reluctance of channels in discussing the development in detail as it adversely affected an influential politician. We didn’t have to worry about such considerations. And the examples are in plenty.
Even though one of the key guiding principles of our platform has been neutrality, we’ve also amply demonstrated our stand in no uncertain terms against Four Cs i.e. Corruption, Communalism (of all hues), Crony Capitalism and Crimes against women and children. That’s because, we firmly believe that there can be no differing views on the above four issues.
During the launch function of www.jantakareporter.com on 3 May, 2015, I had said that, bringing about the much needed revolution in Indian media was never going to be the sole responsibility of one individual. There has to be collective support from all news consuming public at large to achieve this objective. An honest media is absolutely key to ensuring honest politics.
In an electoral democracy, it’s imperative for voters to make informed choices about their representatives and that is never going to be possible amidst rampant allegations of paid journalism in Indian media. Hence the need for a platforms like www.jantakareporter.com.
Our phenomenal successes so early in our life is only indicative of the potential for huge growth for this initiative. But, for us to take this to new heights, we need your support.
You can either be mute bystander and keep expressing your disgust on the goings on in Indian media or be part of the baby step we’ve taken towards creating an alternative and credible media.
You can be a part of this media revolution in several ways. You can choose our platforms to advertise your products given that our reach beats many of the established brands and our cost in comparison is considerably low.
You can and must also subscribe to www.jantakareporter.com. Up until now, we’ve been subscribing to Google Adsense (the ads you see on our website are Google ads) but the revenue generated from there isn’t really something to shout about. Going forward, we aim to make our website as much free from ads as possible. But a lot will depend on how you respond to our appeal for subscription.
So, please check out the different subscription packages and select any of them. Most of you spend hundreds of rupees every month to subscribe to newspapers and TV channels and what you get in return is news that you can barely trust. So, why not strengthen a platform that is truly your own.
Subscribing to www.jantakareporter.com will allow us to widen the areas of our news coverage as due to paucity of resources, we haven’t been able to focus on several areas/genres as much as we would have liked to do.
Thank you to all who’ve contacted me with their intention to help this platform. I’m truly humbled by your kind words. Now is the time for you to support.
Please don’t hesitate to write to me at rifat@www.jantakareporter.com.
Thank you!