Hi Newslaundry Team,
First of all I want to tell you that I have subsribed to NL. I have been following NL Hafta since last 6 weeks and Abhinandan’s consistent pursuasion finally made me realise the importance of having a free media without any bias towards any party. I really enjoy NL hafta and I am now waiting for the Deep Dive podcast from you guys. AnandRanganathan provides stability to the podcast through his well thought out views on any issue discussed. Madhu Ma’am being the most senior provides depth to the podcast. I loved her ” Can you take it?” series especially the one episode with Karan Thapar and Ravish Kumar. I also like the idea of bringing the guest on the podcast as it provides more diverse views on the topic. Of late, I have realised that media has lost its credibility and instead of focusing on journalism and bringing truth in front of people, they have waged a war against each other. I believe this is a low point for today’s journalism and I hope Newslaundry will change this perspective and bring back the lost credibility.
Buuraaaaaaaaaah!
Hello NL team,
I have been a longtime reader, listener and watched almost everything on your youtube channel. I have immense respect for the idea on which your effort is based – reporting/analysis with full disclosure of your interests and biases. There are also many things I’d do differently, but I suppose looking back you’d say the same about yourself. On many days, your execution is bad (terrible on some other days) but the idea is so important that I feel it is worth listening to you again next week!
On subscriptions: I was shocked when Abhinandan (my girlfriend loves you) shared the financials of NL directly to listeners. Such openness from a media organisation in India is very bold and refreshing. So I wanted to share with you the transparency efforts of this social network company called Buffer. They have a webpage for live tracking of every single dollar that moves in or out:
https://buffer.baremetrics.com/
https://open.buffer.com/buffer-public-revenue-dashboard/
You can see the salaries of every single employee, why they are and what they are:
https://open.buffer.com/transparent-salaries/
A central link to all their transparency efforts:
https://buffer.com/transparency
Now I am aware of your transparency efforts:
http://www.newslaundry.com/2014/06/28/our-position-on-newslaundry/
http://www.newslaundry.com/2014/02/05/who-owns-your-media-4/
But in order for me to blindly suggest my friends and family to subscribe to NL, it’d be so so much easier if you could improve upon your transparency. I know it can’t happen in one day. India is different, the culture and expectations are different. I will wait and wish you well but please consider my suggestion in the long term.
Lots of love to NL team,
Ravi
Hi Abhinandan& the NL team,
I’m a huge fan of Newslaundry, I’ve been reading Newslaundry since 2012 when my friend first introduced it to me. I remember the days of the old when the site had a black background and a grid of rectangles with the articles in. I’ve watched all the “Can you take it?”, “I agree”, “NL Interviews”, “Dhobi Ghaat” and “Clothesline”. I remember you being blasted for your interview with Tavleen Singh and MadhuTrehan’s infamous interview with MadhuKishwar. Those were some rough moments bro. There were a lot of great moments along the way too. But the ones that I really like were the interviews with AmanSethi, Jerry Pinto, HartoshBal, Ashok Khemka, Raghu Rai, RenukaChowdary(and a special appearance by her dog). I’m a huge fan of all the “I agree” interviews. I love the format, and I loved your sarcasm, and more often than not wondered why the interviewee would agree to sit with you in the first place. In short, I’m a huge fan of yours.
I’ve been a subscriber since the first time you started subscriptions in 2014. I reported a bug with the subscription the first time it went live. I remember talking to RanjanCrasta to get that resolved. I strongly support independent media and because of you drilling down the idea that for news to be truly independent it cannot be beholden to purse strings of advertisers I started subscribing or donating to other media outlets and organizations. Like a rising tide that lifts all the boats, your message is helping other independent organizations as well. I hope you guys reach more and more people and get as many paying subscribers as possible. As big a fan as I am of Newslaundry, your business model does worry me. If you do end up reading this on the podcast, maybe this a good place to plug in the message “Pay to keep news free”. I do have one suggestion though, maybe one option to sustain NL is by creating syndicated shows wth great content like NPR does. I’m sure you might’ve thought of it, but advice is free, so have it.
I’m also a fan of almost every one that worked previously and are currently working with Newslaundry. As might be evident already I’m a huge fan of yours, your ideas, your insight and your lateral thinking. Respect for MadhuTrehan, for all the work and her depth of history. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to see what makes Ranga uncle great. Nothing against him, it might just be me being unable to see his awesomeness. Manisha adds interesting voice to the discussion, although some her naivety some times is surprising. As too Deepanjana, great enunciation.
After three paragraphs I realize I have to come to the point of this mail. In the NL Hafta #85, MadhuTrehan mentioned both Snowden and Assange in the same vein, accusing them both of being negligent when disclosing sensitive data and putting lives at risk. Although I agree with her on this front about Assange, the same cannot be said of Snowden. Of the big three whistleblowers of recent times Assange, Snowden and Manning, only Snowden handled the information responsibly by turning it over to journalists from multiple news organizations, who vetted the data and removed any information that was deemed sensitive or endangered the lives of people on ground. Snowden did not himself reveal the data but left what needs to revealed to the judgment of the journalists because he believed he did not have the judgement to do it. The only accusations against him of putting lives in danger come either from the House committee that investigated him or NSA, FBI or other US government sources. There is no credible proof that he put lives at risk. This isn’t just my opinion, you can watch it in Citizenfour or read about it on other Omdiyar backed enterprise The Intercept(I agree that Intercept has an anti-institutional bias, but their bias hasn’t come in the way of their reporting which is based on facts). The same cannot unfortunately cannot be said of Assange. I hope you do bring up this point on the Hafta and make that distinction or maybe I’m totally wrong on this issue and you guys can point me in learning the truth.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks,
